Thread - Reconstruction

I would not approve this unless it is a) his own reconstruction; or b) a reconstruction done by someone dead at least 50 years. Looking at the critical report, there is much evidence for something of a reconstruction going all the way back to an André print of the early 1800s, so it's entirely possible the reconstruction issued with the NMA is not truly the editor's but merely a transposition of something published before. Hard to tell without translating the CR into English as my German is somewhat fragmentary. Maybe Notenschreiber (who's a native speaker) can 'splain the issue for us in detail.

It would seem to be a fairly complicated matter since the final manuscript is lost. The largest remaining manuscript is basically a draft (e.g. "entwurf" auf Deustch) and the publication history is pretty tangled to boot. The basset-clarinet was still in use when the work was published in 1801 so there was controversy even back then. This will require some looking into, as you have noted already.

Posted at 22:43, 24 January 2023 by Dbmiller

»The editor of the present edition seems to have made his own reconstruction, but in making it, he follows many sources, some of which are PD, and some of which are not. All his choices are his own, but he of course aligns with various existing reconstructions. The NMA reconstruction also may or may not be OK to keep up. My German reading would take some time to get into the finer points, so I will put it aside for now.«

Thank you all for your time and patience in considering my edition.

Regarding the NMA reconstruction, it is almost completely based on the work published by Hess (1967) who drew on the work of Dazeley (1948) and Kratochvil (1956) (See BA 4576 Vorwort, page X, column 1.) And I'm sure there were rumblings amongst clarinet players before then. Surely no-one owns those reconstructions, and having printed them a first time doesn't mean they didn't they didn't already exist. I don’t think anyone has ever claimed ownership over any reconstruction. Nor has a writer or player ever claimed to be the first to make a discovery.

We should be clear about what reconstruction means with regard to this work. It’s not like the reconstruction of a work by Bach, whereby parts must be specifically re-allocated, transposed, adjusted, and other missing parts supplied. Most of the reconstructions here are of less than a bar and are constrained by the “original” music on either side.

Also, I think it is important to clarify what it means to have “followed” other authors. In this case every single reconstruction has been re-evaluated. However, the preface and commentary in my edition primarily concerns those instances where I have come to a different conclusion to the NMA (because it is widely accepted); it lists other scholars who have come the same conclusion both for validation and further reference. It would seem unnecessary (and time consuming) to outline my reasoning in those cases where I was in agreement with the NMA. That is very different to simply copying the work of others. I think there is quite enough original thought in both the preface and commentary which demonstrates this to be the case.

So why is this edition useful?

1. The NMA is outdated. It was made before the picture of Stadler’s clarinet was discovered, and before it was discovered that the range of the basset clarinet extends to a low B, not C. It would be the first edition to include the low B, and includes possibly the first detailed explanation of why it should be used. Players commission these instruments at great expense.

2. The Critical report gives information that is not even to be found in the NMA report (which also has some small mistakes – to be fair it was dealing with the whole work rather than just the clarinet part).

3. The number of original ideas and working methods point to further avenues of exploration.

4. Quite a bit of the literature is only in German, and in undigitized publications. It is useful that I was able to consult all those references and summarize some of the background to the NMA.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Best wishes C.H.