Introduction
Trills
A checklist of corrections to the Boosey & Hawkes 1948 edition
based on the score published in the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.
About the author...
You may ask why
I have found it necessary to introduce a new edition of the Mozart
Oboe Concerto. There are several reasons. Until Barenreiter
makes a solo oboe part, piano reduction and orchestral parts from
their full score published as part of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe
(1981, Series V/ 14 vol. iii), we must use the no toriously
unreliable Boosey and Hawkes edition from 1948, or the recently
published edition by Gerard Billaudot with revisions and cadenzas
by Pierre Pierlot (1984). The former contains many obvious printing
errors and illogical editorial decisions; while the latter tidies
up many of those discrepancies, it does not attempt to distinguish
editorial amendments from the authentic text.
When preparing any piece of music, it is always best to have the composer's text as a basis from which to work. When the editor does not show what is authentic and what are his own suggestions, the performer is completely at sea. What might appear to be editorial blunders, or misprints - such as inconsistent notation of a phrase as it recurs in a movement - are often rationalized by well-meaning performers doing a self-edit-job unaware that they are changing the composer's own instructions, rather than coming closer to an authentic text. As an example, consider the numerous occurrences of the figure:
at the beginning of the main theme of the 3rd movement of the concerto. It appears in the original sometimes with both pairs of notes slurred, and sometimes with a slur over the first 2 and the 2nd pair staccato: and this in no logical arrangement. Is there a need to favour one articulation and be consistent throughout? Is it necessary to emphasize the existing differences? Are they remnants of a possible easier vocal version where different syllable underlay required different articulation? Mozart didn't seem bothered by the inconsistencies in the score. We must integrate an exact text and the stylistic knowledge necessary to translate this into our concept of Mozart's musical language.
It is now important to establish a new standard edition of this work, so central to all oboists' repertoires, in order to reinstate Mozart's authority. The Prague International competition has stipulated the Neue Mozart Ausgabe as the edition of this work to be used. I hope that it will soon become an international standard for students, soloists, conservatories, auditions, etc. The merits of a performance can be judged only when the elements of the work itself are generally known.
This checklist will enable those oboists in possession of the B&H edition to correct their copies in order with a scholarly prepared text.
Once the text is authenticated, it is, of course, up the performer's musical judgment whether he adhere to the original. There are, at any rate, so many aspects of the work's performance which remain unspecified in the score, that the interpreter is still very free. In the oboe part, there are several fp markings and only once a piano indication. This cannot be taken to mean that Mozart wanted no more dynamic nuances than these! This intention with regard to dynamics are generally clear - they follow the contour of melody and harmony. The dynamics he did mark are usually the surprises that the performer would not have expected - the exceptions to the conventions of the time. It is here that contemporary documentation, such as accounts of performances, and treatises are useful as they give us an idea of the flexibility expected of the performer. Paul Badura-Skoda said:
Without a knowledge of Mozart's style, - one cannot fill out the sketchy passages in many of his compositions in roughly the way he might have done himself; nor can one produce stylistically accurate cadenzas for his concertos, amplify his sparing dynamic markings, play his ornaments correctly, and so on.[1]
A strong personal reason - and here I borrow a metaphor from Christopher Hogwood - to peel the accretions of the past 2 centuries from Mozart's canvas, is to rediscover the work with something of the freshness with which 18th century audiences must have received it, in conjunction with performing music from this period on historical instruments. The use of "original" instruments is only part of the picture, more important than restoring the authentic tone-colour is the re- evaluation of the tradition of the interpretation of classical music.
There has been a tendency towards a monostyle: interpreting music of all ages with the same criteria and goals of expression. That is often the suppression of the composer's and his age's perspective and election of that of the performer, resulting in an unhappy balance between the inputs of composer and performer into the musical event. This is largely due to the loss of the unwritten tradition of conventions governing the interpretation of notation. What Mozart wrote and what we think the same sign means are not necessarily identical: that is most important to remember. We must try to forget all that has changed since 1777 when playing his concerto and interpret his signs in the light of his age. For example, Mozart's staccato is hardly ever the short, sharp effect usually meant in 20th century music.
But is that important? After all this is 1986, not 1777. The musical life of the 20th century has been different from all previous eras, because the majority of musical activity revolves around old music. This great variety of music teaches us that the history of music is not one of an evolutionary process of continually refined expression of the same ideas, but rather of a series of different socio-cultural spheres. To replace a work's stylistic and cultural background with today's tastes in these fields is largely to destroy its individuality. In the words of Paul Badura-Skoda again:
If some particular performer were able to play Mozart so as to make a stronger and deeper effect than anyone else, we should be converted to playing Mozart in "his style" from then on. But this is not likely to happen. Mozart's works, of all music, possess such incomparable organic unity, so complete a balance between content and form, that any interpolation of foreign elements, even on the part of a genius, would ruin their harmony...[2]
We are still interpreters and not imitators of Mozart: we should aim at balancing Mozart's world against our own, his statement against ours, working towards the goal of perfect compatibility of interpretative detail with the composition.
As a complement of the checklist I would like to make a few comments about some specific interpretative details which I hope will be of some help or at least be thought-provoking. This is moving behind the text, to the meaning of the notation.
Appoggiaturas 6 types appear in the concerto.
Type 1. is a full appoggiatura, held for half the value of the following note. It is played strongly and the resolution lighter. The examples labeled 2. above are probably intended as short, light either pre-beat (following the advice of Wolfgang's father in his violin tutor Versuch einer grundlichen Violinschule of 1756) or on-beat (favoured by J.J. Quantz in his Flute Tutor of 1752.)
The figure 
has for long been taken
to be rhythmically equivalent to 
but why should Mozart and so many other
composers of the 18th century take the trouble to use both if
no distinction was intended? It is true that the first notation
reminds the performer that the first note of the group should
not be ornamented, because it is already an appoggiatura; also
it was perhaps a way for composers to indicate the articulation
when
performers were more likely to favour 
One source offers a clue towards a solution
of this perplexing point. It is Agricola's German
translation of and annotations to Tosi's famous vocal tutor Opinioni
de' cantori antichi, e moderni o sieno osservazioni sopra it canto
figurato, printed as Anleitung zur Singkunst in 1757.
Here Agricola recommends that the figures
should be distinguished by playing the appoggiatura shorter than a normal semiquaver, but still on the beat. I have found this interpretation most effective because it lends a lightness and flattering charm to the figure which seems stylistically appropriate.
Where the notes on either side of an appoggiatura are the same pitch, the grace is played short and pre-beat (A). The octave appoggiaturas are clearly intended to be fast and add additional colour to the long notes they precede. Double appoggiaturas before trills usually show a trill starting with a turn from below.
Trills...
Starting trills on the upper
note was the most common practice in Mozart's day. One finds
used interchangeably at this time. There is little doubt about the upper-note beginning from Leopold Mozart's treatise which carefully writes out the way this ornament should be played on long notes. But there are certain instances where an upper-note beginning is impossible, on fast notes, for example the following figure from the 3rd movement of the concerto:
The manuscript shows the violin line written into the oboe part during tutti passages. Does this mean that the oboist "played-along" with the violins? Or was this intended just as cues for the soloist? Does it work to add a bassoon to the bass line? (It was assumed that a bassoon would accompany whenever oboes played in Baroque scores.)
Where I say that dynamics printed by B&H are not authentic, I do not mean that they are wrong. Indeed, they are usually quite sensible and compatible with the music. I only intend to distinguish Mozart from editor.
To play Mozart's music on original instruments is a revelation. So many of the markings make much more sense once one has the appropriate instrument. For example, it is easier to play the fp Mozart specifies at the top of the arpeggios in bars 90-91 of the lst movement because the Classical oboe has naturally stronger notes around top C than the modern instrument. There is also the added colour of crossfingerings that one misses when the concerto is played on modern oboe. I don't want to suggest that the Mozart concerto is easy on any instrument, but the effect of a performance on an 18th century instrument shows how the work took the oboe to its technical limitations better than one where a 20th century oboe is used.
ENDNOTES
1.
Paul and Eva Badura-Skoda, Interpreting Mozart on the Keyboard,
trans. L. Black, Barrie & Rockliff, London, 1962, introduction.
2. Ibid.
Mozart, Oboe Concerto
in C, K314.
A checklist of corrections
to the Boosey & Hawkes 1948 edition based on the score published
in the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.
Oboe
Part
1st movement
bar 32 low C does not exist.
34 No cresc. marked.
37 Artic.: 
42 The notation 
for grace notes was
a shorthand, & equivalent to 
50 Quavers stacc.
51 First g stacc.
53 Quavers stacc.
61 G#A semiquavers not slurred.
62 G#A semiquavers slurred (!?)
63 First 2 notes without stacc. BH semiquavers not slurred.
67 
articulation
continues for the whole bar.
68,69,70 2nd half of bar 
71 No cresc. marked.
72 
74 Trill on E with F# as upper auxiliary.
88 Notated: 
89 4 semiquavers notated: 
93,94 No articulation over the lowest 2 semiquavers of
the arpeggio pattern.
106 Low G does not exist.
122 
and no dynamics marked.
135 Appoggiatura B should be Bb.
138,140,142 Each of the notes on 2nd beats are tied to the following
note, otherwise ar
ticulation is as printed.
143 NB articulation is different from bars 68ff. in the exposition.
146 No cresc. marked.
147 Accidentals are missing in B&H edition: should read:
160 G-B at end of bar without slur.
|
165,166
|
 |
not 
"So," you
say, "What's the difference?"
, it may have been
taken to mean the rhythm 
slurred.
each time.|
66 NB. Difference from bar 28.
|
 |
70 Last A quaver tied across the barline.
77 Vorschlag 
85 Cadenza notated 
Third
movement:
26,30 2 G quavers stacc.
55 Soloist's entry marked P.
60,61 Original has both versions:
65,68 Slur over 1st 4 semiquavers
72 2 G quavers stacc.
91,92 Trill above 3rd of each of triplet of quavers.
118 
123 Theme commences 
154 
(But why is it placed before this trill? Does
it mean 1) that the
assumption that trills generally start on the upper note is wrong?
2) to play this note longer than normal? 3) to play this note
shorter than normal?)
162 No cresc. marked.
174 3rd note is Ab
185,186 
NB This is different from bars 181 & 182
190,192 Articulation of semiquavers: 
222 lst E stacc.
236 2 C's without stacc.
238 Crotchet G tied to 2nd beat
241 lst 2 notes stacc.
242 
252,253 Grace notes: 
258 lst E stacc.
272 Crotchet G tied to 2nd beat (not stacc.!)
276 Crotchet C tied to 2nd beat
Accompaniment
1st Movement
20 No slur between C&E
| 24 25 |
 |
in 1st and 3rd beats. throughout the bar. |
| 64 86 |
 |
asterisked
notes are in harmony but should be shown as continuation of theme.
also 119,121.
