Volume 33 Number 3 June 2006 - International Clarinet Association

Baermann certainly rectified
shortcomings in the
“Carl
older editions (or the original
source texts), but in the process of his own
editorial work he swung to the opposite
extreme: in his editions every bar contains
the minutest instructions regarding dynamics
and articulation. […] in many places it
is clear that in his attempt to add precision
to the rudimentary markings in the sources
he either misunderstood Weber’s intentions
or made the conscious decision to
contravene them.”
This is one of the repeated pleadings for
a more critical assessment of the famous
Baermann editions of Weber’s clarinet
works to be found in the new volume of
the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe
(Complete Works by C. M. v. Weber). This
volume comprises the composer’s chamber
music for clarinet: The Silvana-variations
in B ♭ major, Op. 33, the Clarinet
Quintet in B ♭ major, Op. 34 and the Grand
Duo Concertant in E ♭ major, Op. 48. 1 All
of these works (like the concerti for clarinet
and orchestra, which Frank Heidlber
ger discussed in his essay in volume 30,
no. 1 of this periodical) had been composed
for — or together with — the famous Munich
clarinetist Heinrich Joseph Baermann
(1784–1847) between 1810 and 1815. And
all works had been published in 1870 in a
new edition of Baermann’s son Carl Baermann
(1811–1885) in which the son pretended
to present these works in the way
his father played them (with Weber). 2
The new edition is extremely sceptical
about this statement: Carl Baermann’s editions
were made more than 50 years after
the works had been composed and more
than 20 years after Heinrich Baermann’s
death. Carl was at the tender age of four
when Weber for the last time met his friend
in Munich. (Later Heinrich Baermann visited
Weber in Dresden without his son.)
May we really suppose that a small boy of
four years had such a precise power of
recollection And if his father later played
the works very differently from the text
published (as Carl reported in a letter to
the Weber researcher Friedrich Wilhelm
Jähns in 1865), who is willing to guarantee
that this had to do with the influence of
the composer
In fact, the editions of Carl Baermann
are interpreting text-editions typical for the
mid-19th century: all details of the dynamics
and articulation are codified with a precision
that shows the deep knowledge of
Page 40
Weber’s Clarinet
Chamber Music
Without Baermann
The New Volume of the
Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Gesamtausgabe
and the Digital Edition of the Quintet, Op. 34
THE CLARINET
by Joachim Veit
the instrument Baermann’s son had. Compared
with Weber’s manuscripts one may
speak of an all-dressed-up edition in the
case of Baermann and a nearly naked textpresentation
in the case of Weber. This is
especially true if one considers Weber’s
autographs. In the autographs of the Clarinet
Quintet (Berlin, State Library) und the
Grand Duo (Washington, Library of Congress)
there are some pages which consist
only of note symbols, nearly without dynamics
and phrasing. In both cases these
autographs were designed to serve as copies
for Weber’s own archive, so it was not
necessary to include all the hints which a
performer needed — Weber knew in which
way he had to fill in the blank spaces. But
if we today would try to publish a new edition
based on these autograph manuscripts
we would burden the performer with so
many inconveniences and uncertainties that
such an edition would be really useless. It
is not astonishing that the former edition of
Günter Hausswald (published in 1953 by
Breitkopf & Härtel), which was based on
the autograph, was reprinted in 1989 with
practical additions by Wolfgang Meyer.
Pamela Weston, in her edition of the Grand
Duo following the autograph (Corby: Fentone,
1989), added a second version beneath
Weber’s text in which she gave her
own interpretation of the work. The amount
of “blank space” in Weber’s autographs
seduced the clarinetists to prefer the convenient
Baermann edition — until today.
The new Weber Complete Edition now
for the first time exploits the engraver’s
copy-texts of these two works which had
been hitherto overlooked by other editors.
Both manuscripts (housed again at Washington
and Berlin as well as in the Vienna
Municipal Library) were written by copyists
and thoroughly proofread by Weber.
The composer directed his attention not so
much on possible defects in pitch or rhythm
but rather on dynamics, articulation
and phrasing, i.e., the so-called secondary
parameters of music. The result are manuscripts
littered with pencil markings by
Weber’s hand (at least in the case of the
Duo and the first three movements of the
Quintet; the Finale of this work seems not
to be checked with such care). These manuscripts
are of the utmost importance for
any edition which endeavors to present an
authentic text of the works — much more
than the likewise often ignored first editions
which were published from these
copies with Weber’s consent but with a lot
of defects caused by the engravers. In July
1817 Weber wrote to his Berlin publisher
Adolph Martin Schlesinger concerning the
print of the Quintet parts: “I am enclosing
the corrections of the quintet, in which there
were significant mistakes.” The printing revised
by Weber was then published as a
corrected original edition (plate number
189), but nevertheless a lot of mistakes are
still to be found in these parts too. Often
the engravers misinterpreted slurs, accents
or dynamic markings of the copy-text. Thus
the copy-text is clearly more authentic than
the printed sources based on it.
Weber’s entries in the copy-text are of
special interest for the editor and perhaps
for the performer too. Even if the new editions
are based on these copy-texts as the
main sources it seemed to be useful to inform
the reader about these “specially
authorized” details in the musical text. The