Quintett en C moll, op. 30b (1904)
für Blasinstrumente
by Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Gewidmet Karl Tamme, Miglied des Gewandhaus und Theater Orchesters, Lehrer Königlichen Konservatorium der Musik zu Liepzig in Verehrung und Dankbarkeit
Arrangement & edited for woodwind quintet by Franklin Stöver, 1979, rev. 2003.
An early work, Karg-Elert's Erstes Quintett, op. 30 of 1904 was originally conceived for oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon and horn, written two years after securing a teaching position at Magdeburg Conservatory. The quintet is placed between Op. 29 and 31, works for harmonium. The work was published nine years later in Leipzig.
The wind quintet minus flute explains why it has been overlooked by the everyday wind quintet. Apparently the 27-year old composer was looking for a slightly reedier, darker sound over the traditional wind quintet instrumentation, and by its title (Erstes Quintett), he must have intended to compose a Sekunde quintet using the same instrumentation. Because this version represents a different instrumentation, it will be referred to as Karg-Elert's Quintett en C moll, op. 30b to distinguish it from the original version published in 1913.
The new version was hampered by the absence of a full score, so a new score had to be assembled from a set of parts that were found to contain inconsistencies. And as the new score required some part redistribution to accommodate the new flute part, it borrowed elements from the oboe and clarinet I parts, occasionally written an octave higher where appropriate. Along the way, the original clarinet II part disappeared mainly into the lower instrument parts.
While the original version should always be the preferred version, this adaptation will hopefully come close to the composers' original intention and may encourage performances of the original. The original version (a reprint of the parts without score) is offered by Edition Silvertrust at www.editionsilvertrust.com
This arrangement is based entirely on individual parts of the urtext edition published by Verlag von C.F. Kahnt Nachfolger, Leipzig in 1913. No score was located and the parts appear to have been hastily prepared; absent are metronome indications and in places the parts are hard to read. Aside from the C.R. Kahn urtext, an unpublished hand drawn copy of the quintet was found on the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) website and has been compared to the urtext version. The hand drawn copy is most likely in the composers' own writ because it closely resembles his writing found in correspondence published by Harold Fabrikant in 1996. This matters because we can compare Karg-Elert's original against the engraver at C.F. Kahnt. Concerning tempi, I have inserted metronome indications approximating Csaba Klenyán's recording of the Quintet on Hungaroton HCD 32166, released in 2003.