Talk:Clarinet Concerto (Mozart)

Untitled

Everything I remember reading says that he might have written it for basset horn, not that he did. Is there a source that confirms it somewhere? Melodia Chaconne 9 July 2005 18:21 (UTC)

What I have read on the subject, though not definitive, stated that Stadler had an extended clarinet created, with a range similar to the basset. I understand that Mozart wrote the concerto for this instrument. Asimovfan01 04:39, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

When the concerto was first published by Breitkopf und Haertel in 1803, a review was published in the Allgemeine musikalischen Zeitung in which the writer says that he had the original score and points out notes in the basset register which had been changed. See Arthur Ness, "The original text of Mozart's Concerto, K.V. 622" (M.A. thesis, Harvard U., 1963).

I have to examine more sources, but I suppose the piece was originally sketched a Concerto in G for basset horn, and Stadler was made a new kind of clarinet, basset clarinet, which is the instrument Mozart can be said composed for. Another thing, I'm not totally convinced about references for alberti bass (I can hear it some seconds on I mvt, around 4:30 and 10:50, depending of recordings). Personally I feel there are way better examples of this musical device. --Jacofin 08:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

http://www.classicalnotes.co.uk/home.html is one source which says it's written for basset clarinet:

Stadler had recently invented an instrument that combined the agility of the early clarinet 
with the depth of the basset horn, and this "Basset Clarinet" was the instrument for which Mozart wrote his concerto. --Jacofin 08:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I took out In 2006, the concerto was elected the UK's favourite piece of classical music in a listeners' poll conducted by classic FM (UK).[1] This may be a minor curiosity but it certainly doesn't belong in the introduction.--Zeisseng 21:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

Were it up to me, I'd have to say that all of the trivia section should go as it is totally unrelated to the Clarinet Concert proper. Wikipedia articles should be about their subjects and shouldn't wander off like this. I tried removing the trivia section the other day and was met by resistance. I believe the relevant policies are WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:TRIVIA. Themfromspace (talk) 11:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Trivia talks about lists of unrelated facts. The items in the list under the "use in movies" section is not unrelated. In my view the list demonstrates the popular fascination for this concerto.brian stormer (talk) 08:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

But this material should be properly implemented into the article instead of being a never-ending laundry list of trivia. A sentence such as "Mozart's clarinet concerto has been used numerous times in film" would suffice. A few name-drops if the concerto played a prominent role in the film would be appropriate as well, but it is unencyclopedic to have a run-on list like this. This isn't an article about film but music. Themfromspace (talk) 08:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

If you look at my edit (the one before Belvdme's), that's what I was trying to get at, starting with a sentence a lot like the one you suggest, then a "few name-drops" when the concerto was prominent in the film and/or there was a citation to be had (such as the use in Breathless with the Monde citation). I'm not going to revert, because my way is just one of many ways we can make that section a nice, smooth read instead of a jumble of loosely related facts. Willi Gers07 (talk) 19:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed my mind. I'm reverting (only once) back to my edit, since it comes so close to what Themfromspace is saying the section should be like anyway. If more people agree that this is the general direction to take, then doesn't it make more sense to make little adjustments to my rewrite than to go back to the trivia tag-inducing version and make big edits to get that close to what has already been done? But I won't revert a second time (voluntary adoption of 1RR) because there are so many other things on Wikipedia in serious need of attention. Willi Gers07 (talk) 18:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Willi Gers07 (talk) brian stormer (talk) 12:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• The Use in Movies constitutes trivia straight up IMO. I have asked the composition and classical projects for their consideration, but I recommend it be expunged. Eusebeus (talk) 16:23, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Trivia is in the eye of the beholder. To me, the fact that it was premiered in October 16, 1791 is trivia. The only reason I could possibly need to know that is if I go on Jeopardy! I'm not going to remove that date just because I think it's trivia.
  • So let's look instead at what the tag says: "lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided." What's so miscellaneous about that section? Willi Gers07 (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes take a blind eye to it if its isolated and under control, but lists like that are trivia. You can take it to the WP:CM discussion board if you'd like but you'll find they'll be much less reasonable about it than I am. These sections have had a history of growing out of control and taking over the article. They'll start off innocently enough, but once people see its there, it will grow with use in television shows, television commercials, anime cartoons, video games, movie-character cell-phone ring tones, classical top 40 playlist positions, etc, etc. It becomes a veritable catch-all "where'd you hear it" list. Attempts to fork off "in pop culture" child articles invariably result in those child articles getting deleted. In some respects, its too bad because there's a certain quirky fun to these lists, but they grow like vines. We can't even mention that Beethoven's Ninth is featured in A Clockwork Orange because of the torrent of other pop culture references that would follow. See [2]. :-) Ideally, it would be fun if there was a commons-like wiki-area just for the pop-culture lists. WikiPopCulture or WikiTrivia or something and then relevant articles could have a template-link similar to those for the commons or the wiktionary pointing to an associated page there. I'd link to an external site if there was a good one, but most external sites for this type of thing aren't maintained well. Until then, though, once editors find these sections in WP:CM, they're usually gone. DavidRF (talk) 00:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well summarised. Per the WT:CMP discussion I have removed the needless clips and eliminated the trivia per our longstanding consensus at CMP. I'll post over there as needed to prevent this trivia from being restored. Eusebeus (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I fully agree with you about the problems of these lists. As said before, I think a prose mention of the use of this piece in a variety of films in general (perhaps with several citations after it sourcing it to the most notable films), but the mentions in this list format are asking for trouble. Besides, its getting away from what the article is really about, which is the Clarinet Concerto itself, not how its used in film. ThemFromSpace 01:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I have made the necessary changes and added in the out of Africa mention (notable enough) to the lede. Eusebeus (talk) 01:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC) (PS: I like the idea that date of premiere is of relevance only to Jeopardy candidates. That will go down well at CMP!).

esp. if their deluded that this is Grove and not wikipedia - you don't know that its just musicologists looking at this. film buffs might apreciate reading about why Goddard chose this music, and other film directors who want to use it don't care about the premiere: it was so long ago its public domain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.38.27.182 (talk) 01:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

How were film buffs going to find this article at all? There's no mention of this work in the article on the actual film. As far as the film article is concerned, the music is by Martial Solal. A quote from the director on why he chose a particular piece of music is very interesting, but why isn't it in the article for the actual film? I don't want to argue too much about the exclusion of decent information, but there needs to be some priorities about where this information goes first. Too often the usage of a piece in a film is labeled as "essential" and then when you go to the article on that particular film, there's no mention of it whatsoever.DavidRF (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

If I may answer the first question: a) By using the "What links here" feature, or b) By typing "Clarinet Concerto" in the search box, or c) By looking up in the IMBD to get the title and composer, or d) By looking it up in http://www.naxos.com/musicinmovies.asp?letter=A. I wouldn't expect film buffs to have access to the New Grove online, but they should know the four methods I just listed. Willi Gers07 (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a lot of hoops to jump over and doesn't answer the question as to why its not listed in Breathless (1960 film). I'd think a film buff would check there first because that's what they were just watching. The "what links here" example is ridiculous. With that logic, we could justify leaving out Godard himself from that article figuring that interested readers could just click "what links here" and sift through the couple of hundred unsorted links to try and figure out who directed the movie. Typing "clarinet concerto" in the search box sends them directly to an article that lists scores of clarinet concertos. No help there. I tell you what though, if naxos's big table was reverse sorted (sorted by piece and not by movie), I wouldn't mind including it as an external link.DavidRF (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not listed in Breathless because the owner of the Godard articles forbids reference to Mozart as supposedly trivial. Some people are becoming aware of how hellbent deletionists are in destroying any sort of cross-reference in Wikipedia. A film buff who recognizes Mozart might click "What links here" in the hopes that the owner of the Mozart articles has not also forbidden references to Godard. Alas, he now has.

However, David, I do have to admit that you in particular are at least honest about your thought process when deleting stuff. Most deletionists are not going to disclose their thought process is "This was written by one of my enemies ( = someone who disagrees with me on anything even minor) so I'm not going to read it before I delete it," (assuming there's any thought process at all). You at least show that you do read stuff and think about for at least a little bit of time before acting. Willi Gers07 (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You know what? I don't believe your story about the Breathless movie. They've got a reference to a particular episode of The L Word but adding a quote from the film's director as to why he chose to include a piece of music in the film is considered trivia? Sorry, don't buy your story. Seems that the article on the film would be the best place to discuss its soundtrack. Once they get here, they already know what they were looking for. I'd add the Godard quote to the Breathless article myself, but I haven't seen the (I know, hang my head in shame) so I would feel better if I at least had the scene where the concerto is featured in my head before adding the quote for it. I also think that the music Martial Solal composed would have to be discussed, which from the sounds of it makes up a larger segment of the film. DavidRF (talk) 20:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The take-home lesson here is: if I had plenty of free time to devote to Wikipedia, I would feel the most successful by blocking improvements and deteriorating content to the point I could justify deleting it with the full backing of CMP. It would be a waste of my time trying to improve what's written by those uninitiated into the secret CMP society. Willi Gers07 (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The main dispute here is whether or not catering articles on classical compositions to film buffs counts as an improvement. Its not a secret society. Looking at your edit history, you qualify as a member as much as anyone else. There's no initiation, all you have to do is add Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music to your watch list and you'll be in on all the "secret" discussions. Cheers.DavidRF (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that's for show. They probably make the real decisions over IM, IRC, e-mail or something else. Willi Gers07 (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Now you make me feel left out. Nobody emails me.  :-) DavidRF (talk) 20:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Just fyi, I think the film Breathless is trivial. Black and white with subtitles, it's very boring. So David, don't feel bad about not having seen it, you haven't missed anything. Maybe I should get that article deleted in its entirety, since it's all trivia. But wait a minute, I'm not Eusebeus, I don't impose my opinions of triviality on others. Willi Gers07 (talk) 16:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Image Files

Could someone please transfer the image files of the three movement themes to Commons? I got stuck when trying to open the necessary TUSC account (whatever that is). When done please leave a message on [[3]]. I'd like to use the files for the German (and maybe other) Wikipedia. Thanks! --Pjt56 (talk) 20:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

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Not a foot in the grave

I took out wording saying that Mozart wrote the concerto "shortly before he died", because I believe it invites readers to think he was bedridden and struggled to finish it. To the contrary, it seems that the first half of October 1791 was a pretty good time for Mozart. See for instance his happy letter of 14 October to Constanze, describing how much his colleague Salieri had enjoyed attending The Magic Flute as his guest (the opera had been playing to packed houses since Sept. 30). Things obviously got much, much worse for Mozart, but only later. Opus33 (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Key of the musical examples

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Score samples and transposing instruments in order to discuss general principle. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

---

Would it be reasonable to transpose the musical examples to be in A major? I know that C major is what the clarinettist sees, but A major is what the public hears. Opus33 (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

As a 3040+-year clarinet player, I have to say "No", and leave it at that. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:28, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Well all right, if it would make clarinettists indignant to change it, we can leave it in. But I did put in a footnote to assist the baffled outsider, including a link to transposing instrument. Opus33 (talk) 23:57, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

And I took it out, because anyone likely to be confused is also going to have enough knowledge notto be confused. This is a Clarinet Concerto: I transcribed the clarinet part. 'Nuff said. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:38, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the notation as shown is confusing and an explanatory note should accompany it. That note needs to be a bit more general than the version proposed by Opus33 because of the D major movement. On the other hand, there's a case to present these themes in concert pitch, because a) that's what's heard; b) they are also played, in fact introduced in movement 1, by non-transposing instruments in the concerto; c) that avoids the need for an explanation; d) there exist arrangements for other instruments of K. 622. How is this treated in analytical sources that provide notation examples? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:41, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Köchel catalogue p. 489 shows that, for several centuries, it is the habit of presenting such musical incipits untransposed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:21, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I used to play the clarinet and must admit that players of other instruments had a hard time reading clarinet parts at concert pitch. I doubt the casual reader knows the notion of a transposing instrument.--Jasper Deng (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Michael Bednarek (well, mostly). I would not say that writing the theme as transposed for the clarinet is "confusing", quite, but I think it would clearly be more helpful to almost all readers to show the concert pitch version. This avoids puzzlement over the key signature, for a start. Again, there is plainly a *reasonable case* for either approach, even if the case for writing a transposed version is largely historical (so clarinettists of whatever vintage should have no veto). And I think that how Koechel did it (for example) is not a good guideline. Historically the task of transposing a staff in a score was tedious and error prone; now it is not, it's largely a short sequence of keystrokes involviing up-up or whatever. So there is no longer any reason at all, other than history, for a conductor's score to have different instruments written in different keys. I think it should be sufficient to placate the clarinettists to add a note "Transposed to concert pitch", with appropriate WL. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:54, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Re. "... Koechel ...": a more modern example of presenting the incipits untransposed is RISM 1001000573. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:09, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion: this has nothing to do with concert pitch or not (whether the pitch is A440 or some pre-19th century pitch makes no difference for how to present these examples). The question to "transpose the musical examples to be in A major" makes no sense: the examples of the 1st and 3rd movement are in A major, notated for a transposing instrument (clarinet in A, which plays in A major or its relative minor key without accidentals); the second movement is not in A major, nor should its music example be "transposed" to that key. All music examples should be presented in untransposed notation, while that's how it's done from the 19th to the 21st century when presenting such musical examples for a general audience (see external links above). In this context "transposing" has nothing to do with changing key (this is not transposing to a different key), it is a musical notation for a transposing instrument, which makes no sense without mentioning for which type of transposing instrument the score is written down. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:12, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

There certainly is confusion. First of all, the use of "concert pitch" here (by me, at least) refers to notes written to show the sound heard, or equivalently the written score for a non-transposing instrument as opposed to the score for a transposing instrument such as the clarinet. I'm sorry, but I can't honestly understand from the rest of your paragraph which side of the argument you are advocating. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Please see concert pitch (I already linked to this article above): it doesn't help to use expressions in idiosyncratic meanings, which is not how such things are understood generally. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:51, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

It is not "idiosyncratic"; the term "concert pitch" is also used as I mentioned. See for example Musescore, where there is a "Concert pitch" flag on transposing instrument staves, which when ticked shows the sounding pitch, when unticked shows the score as written for clarinet. (I can't understand the bit below either. What does "technically it is wrong" mean?) Imaginatorium (talk) 12:11, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

PS: Also try wiktionary: [4] Imaginatorium (talk) 12:13, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Re. concert pitch definition at wiktionary: unreferenced; does not mention either of the two meanings of concert pitch mentioned in Webster's (the Wikipedia article is about the obvious first of these two meanings). So, for the time being I'd be wary to use a somewhat more exotic meaning of the expression. Don't know about Musescore, but doesn't seem normative here (and also, in the software, from what you explain, it might be rather a reference to "A=440Hz" than to what you used it for). So please again, let's use words in their normal, standard meaning to avoid confusion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:07, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice, but I remind you that you are the English learner around here. I'm not. So perhaps you should go away and study a bit. Or, of course, you could try to find another term for what educated native speakers mean by "concert pitch" in this context. Good grief. No, in Musescore, "concert pitch" has nothing to do with 440Hz as such, it is as I described it. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:24, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

No reason to get bitchy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Re. "technically it is wrong": the original examples (in score tag notation) did in fact not transpose. I'm trying to find out whether transposed notation is possible for the software used to generate these musical examples, but couldn't find it yet. The vorbis sound should of course generate the correct pitch: i.e. the sound heard for the first note of the first example should be an E, not a G. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:07, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Follow-up: think I figured it out to make it technically correct (notes sounding at the correct pitch for the "clarinet in A" notation). Leaves to be decided whether we prefer this or the previous version where no transposition needs to be mentioned (my stance is clear I think). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:11, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, this is how it should be written:

Clarinet in A

But technically (i.e. how the score tags work) it is wrong, which becomes apparent when adding the ability to generate audio ("vorbis") to the score tag notation:

Clarinet in A

The audio only becomes correct when removing the transposition:

So I enabled vorbis audio for the examples, which meant the examples needed to be untransposed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:51, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

The article Concert pitch is confused and confusing (which becomes obvious when one looks at its interwiki corresponding articles). Among musicians, particularly players of transposing instruments and conductors, only the second paragraph, despite the recently added citation tags, applies. The term is the opposite of "written pitch". The article Transposing instrument attempts to clarify the concepts. In notation programs, it's mentioned here (in German) and here (in English) for MuseScore, here for Mozart, here for Finale. That is the meaning I and Jasper Deng used above. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

In sum,

• for the Concert pitch article:
  • usage of the expression for transposing instruments is explained in a confusing manner (Michael)
  • that usage is completely unreferenced in that article (Francis)

... calling for an update of that article for this usage of the expression (copyedit; wording; references;...)

• for the Transposing instrument article:
  • Regarding the "attempts to clarify the concepts" (Michael) I would posit that these attempts are far from successful in that article, rather expanding the confusion than containing it
  • This article already has several tags for failing referencing, and the usage of the "concert pitch" expression completely fails references: only one sentence using the expression is actually referenced, with a reference which confirms nothing of the sort (the expression "concert pitch" does not occur in the quoted work)

... calling for even more intensive rewriting (copyedit; wording; references;...) than the Concert pitch article

• for the wiktionary:concert pitch dictionary definition:
  • lacks both of the meanings of "concert pitch" mentioned in Webster's (Francis)
  • completely unreferenced (Francis)

... calling for some serious updating too

• for Clarinet Concerto (Mozart) this rather strengthens the idea that we shouldn't bother its readers with matters that would too easily lead to "confused and confusing" wording/explanations/clarifications – for something that is not by far essential to the topic of this article.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 17:25, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The soloist doubling violin I in the first two movements

In the full orchestral scores seen on IMSLP, I invariably see the clarinet part doubling the first violin part during tutti sections in the first and second movements, particularly the exposition. This is naturally not how the work is usually performed. Is this worth noting in the article?--Jasper Deng (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Looking for how score examples are presented in literature, I came across this article that discusses this very point. Apparently, they used to. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jasper Deng: The article that Michael Bednarek links is quite flawed. The reality is that this is merely a system of cueing; the soloist, at that time, was not expected to count empty measures. (A more detailed look at this can be found in Charles Rosen's The Classical Style and his essay Drama and Figured Bass in Mozart's Concertos, reprinted in Freedom and the Arts, although his focus is on the piano concerti.) In Mozart's time, the clarinettist may have thought it a good idea to warm up by joining in for the louder parts of the tutti, but it would be utterly ridiculous for him to double the first violin part indiscriminately; for one thing, it would fly in the face of Mozart's otherwise judicious employment of wind doubling. The article rejects this viewpoint, but one should seriously wonder then why this sort of texture is found nowhere else other than the scores of the concerti if you take them at face value. One would also then start to wonder why this cueing is only found in the long tutti sections, not the short ones that contrast with the solo passages once the solo exposition is underway. And one would also wonder why the doubling seems to mysteriously stop, despite no difference being present in the orchestral texture, just before the retransition to the recapitulation and the reintroduction of the solo.

In fact, the article itself gives evidence for Rosen's view (which I wholeheartedly agree with, of course); there are some places in KV 622 where, contrary to the musical text in the first violin, the solo clarinet is given the same text transposed down an octave. Why is this done? Because the upper register of the clarinet would pierce too much through the texture. In other words, this change is made precisely so that the doubling is inaudible to everyone except the orchestra, for whom it is useful to keep the ensemble together. One gets the feeling instead that Mozart had already realised long ago that his conception of the concerto had burst its pre-classical bonds as early as 1777 with KV 271, but as with all traditions, the tradition of the continuo had continued long after it was musically dead. As a result, Mozart simply put indications for the continuo, since he knew it was inevitably going to get played, but made sure that it did not detrimentally affect the music too much; indeed in the indications of KV 246 he might almost be considered over-cautious, as he sometimes marks tasto solo even when the orchestra is playing forte and any right-hand chords would not be heard anyway. That is why he writes rests before the solo entrance in KV 271, so that the dramatic effect is not spoiled (the same thing happens in KV 622); and that is why all the changes in the tutti sections of KV 622 written into the clarinet part are written to minimise attention to the clarinet part (registral shifts and smoothing out what would have been virtuosic repeated semiquavers into simple quavers). The only part of KV 622 where this doubling has any musical value is the end of the finale, where it helps make sure that the clarinettist does not look as if he is going to hurry off for an appointment.

If one would like to take more of these concerto scores at face value, anachronistically expecting to use the modern idea that everything written into the solo part must be played, perhaps it is judicious to note that Chopin's autograph of the solo part of his F minor concerto include piano reductions of the tutti sections into the solo part (the orchestral parts are in another's hand). Now, we can obviously see that this is ridiculous, and that Chopin obviously intended this to only be played for a solo performance without orchestra (in fact, astonishingly, it is instead the orchestral part which has the character of a continuo, with occasional solo instruments joining the piano). But the function of providing cues to the pianist is still very much alive, even though I hope no one is seriously maintaining that pianists should really be playing along in the tutti sections. Double sharp (talk) 14:52, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Note also that in the horn concertos, since the natural horns of the time could not easily play the chromatic passages in the violin part, Mozart simply marks rests in the solo part during the tutti; whereas if he had done this for the other concertos, it would likely have been considered confusing (as they would have expected to see something of the orchestral part in a way that let them play along sometimes, even if it was musically unnecessary for them to do so). (The one exception is of course the joke at the start of KV 447, where what looks like the first theme for the hornist looking at his solo part turns out to simply be an accompaniment to the orchestra – at least until the development.) Double sharp (talk) 15:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

References