gran Partitta
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Given music predominantly for wind instruments, Mozart’s Serenade for 13 players, K. 361, is an infrequently performed though, paradoxically, a very popular work. When any player is invited to be part of the band, even the most jaded, worn out, bored, tired, and I’ve-played-everything instrumentalist looks forward to the experience, because of the work’s miraculous ability; specifically, it can refresh cynical, tired-out players, reminding them that the joy of their youth and the goal of their lives, namely participating in the perform-ance of music, is still a magnificent gift to have, and a joyful, glorious, self-enriching thing to do.
But does K. 361 have enough facets to be the subject of an entire book, or is this attempt going to deteriorate into a giant pile of romantic goo?
Get together a bunch of music lovers who know and love the composition and there will immediately be a great many opinions on almost any aspect of the work, including its history, form, instrumentation, character, seating arrangements, applicable performance practices, need for a conductor, and, in my own case, the strange spelling of the work’s subtitle.
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About the Book
The book is an attempt to gather in one place the important and critical information about Mozart's Serenade in B-flat, K. 361 for 13 instruments. The work is a very popular one, though, paradoxically, rarely performed due to its unusual instrumentation. Every effort was made to have the text of the book easily read, even though some of the technical issues involved have considerable complexities.
About the Author
Leeson’s degrees are in mathematics and he was an employee of the IBM Corporation for almost 30 years, after which he taught mathematics at De Anza College in California State for another 15 years. He is also one of America's leading Mozart specialists, with a particular emphasis on Mozart portraiture. He has published articles in the Mozart; Letters, Eighteenth Century Music<, the International Journal of Musicology,and a variety of scholarly journals. Leeson and Professor Neal Zaslaw of Cornell University, edited the volume of wind serenads for the Bärenreiter edition of Mozart’s complete (or almost complete) works, the Neue Mozart Ausgabe. Leeson was also a professionall performer, holding the position of bass clarinetist with the San Jose California Symphony for 20 years. His particular emphasis was on basset horn performance. He is now retired and lives in California with his wife, near his children and his grandchild.