JOSEF FIALA CLARINET CONCERTO

The present edition is actually a project I undertook on behalf of my good

friends Julia Heinen and her husband Richard Kravchak, who are performers
on the clarinet and English horn respectively. In October of 2000, Julia
mentioned to me that she and Richard were scheduled to play the Concertante
of Josef Fiala (1749-1816) with the Moorpark Symphony, and that the
orchestra parts she was able to obtain from a friend in Morgantown WV were
very difficult to read from. Her plea: would I Finale-ize the parts for her? Had
I only known then what I was getting into!
A few weeks after our initial conversation Julia sent me, not the parts, but a
modern hand-written score made back in 1955 from the set of 18th-century
manuscript parts owned by the Library of Congress. At the time, the
transcriber thought this work to be a clarinet concerto. Unbeknownst to him:
there was a missing Cor Anglais part!
So I got to work. But the going was rough because, at some later time, the
transcriber had found out about the Cor Anglais part, and had written it in
where ever space could be found. That meant that, at times, he was writing
right over the horn parts since they basically play long-value notes. In other
places, he simply used the bars where the solo clarinet was resting. In yet
other spots, he had written the Cor Anglais part on separate manuscript paper
and pasted it in.
I counted my blessings: at least I had the bulk of the orchestra voices, which is
really what Julia was after. That's when I discovered all the wrong notes:
Finale's playback does not lie. In addition, the slurs and dynamics brought
over from the manuscript parts to the hand-written score were in great
disarray. So, major reconstructive work was in order.
As to the provenance of this sinfonia concertante: its composer, the oboist
Josef Fiala, was one of the outstanding players that Prince Kraft Ernst had
brought to Wallerstein Castle in 1774 to reconstitute his father's Harmoniemusik. It is not known if his Concertante was composed at Wallerstein, since
the only other known copy of it is located in the Thurn und Taxis court library
at Regensburg. By 1778, Fiala had joined the Hofkapelle of the Archbishop of
Salzburg, so his stay at Wallerstein was short.
In my reconstruction, I posited that the resting flutists of the slow movement
probably took string instruments in hand at that point to avoid playing in Eb
major, an unpleasant key for the flute of the Classic Era insofar as intonation

is concerned. On the other hand, perhaps the flutes doubled the ritornello as it
was notated in the first and second violin parts. After all, the horns play the
ritornelli of this movement. I opted for the latter idea.
As with all concertos that are contained in the Double Reed Archaeologist, the
string bass plays only during the ritornelli. Scores of the 18th century are quite
vague on this issue, but as the Concertante follows this procedure for the
second viola and for the four winds, I have followed suit. I would also
recommend the use of a concertante string quartet during the episodes, as
Fiala has forgone the conventional use of first and second violins in these
episodes, for the four-part harmony of two violins, viola, and cello.
The layout of the score of 1955 from which I worked, has been modified for
my edition: the two solo parts are now placed in the center between the winds
and strings, rather than at the top of the score. It should be noted that in Georg
Feldmayr's Concertante, the composer positioned the soloists at the top of his
autograph score, followed by the strings. Feldmayrs's wind band is relegated
to the bottom of the score, almost as an afterthought, although its participation
in his composition is integral.
Fiala's Concertante, itself, is lightweight. Structurally, the first two movements
are set in ritornello form, the first with a sonata-form overlay. The finale, on
the other hand, is a rondo, and is quite comical! All three movements require
the composition of cadenzas for the clarinet and cor anglais, a good project for
the two soloists who will play this work. On the other hand, one could utilize
the cadenzas for the first two movements supplied with the Musica Rara
edition of the Concertante. This modern version, created from the Thurn und
Taxis parts, is a practical arrangement for clarinet, English horn, and piano
published in 1984.