Klarinet Archive - Posting 000220.txt from 1994/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Mozart performance practice
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 12:04:38 -0500

> From: SMTP%"Cary Karp <nrm-karp@-----.19
> Subj: Re: Mozart performance practice

> > The bottom line here is that I am a practical, no-nonsense clarinet
> > player. I don't believe in esoterica, or feelings, or any of the
> > things that non-musicians think about when they think about musicians.
> > I believe only in one thing: knowledge. Feelings about how to play
> > a work are, in my view, a waste of talent. It is knowing the
> > mechanics of what was expected of the player (coupled with being
> > a hell of a technician) that makes one a communicating musician, not
> > the agony of the torment of Beethoven, or the passion of Tchaikovsky.
> > I think knowledge is king and everything else is secondary. Of course,
> > I may be all wrong, but when one plays a Mozart work (which is what this
> > discussion is about), except for the wig, buckled shoes, and satin
> > waistcoat, one must do this as a man or woman from the 18th century.
> > If one does it as a 20th century person (which is how you described
> > yourself), I think that it is going to come out all wrong.
>
> Clarinetists of the 18th century used instruments which differed
> substantially from those in use today. These differences are both numerous
> and musically relevant. Most advocates of rigorous authenticity accept the
> consequences of this and regard period instruments as an obligatory part
> of a knowledgeable performance. I would agree that period costumes can be
> dismissed as affected optical trimmings. But the horn is what you hear and
> surely has to be high up on the checklist of knowable attributes of a
> musically uncompromising authentic performance.

Cary posted the above paragraph to me personally (in what I think was
a most gentle way of disagreeing with me in private - and I am grateful
to him for his sensitivity in this respect), but he is hiding his light
under a bushel. He is quite right, and the passion of my writing caused
me to forget to include the instrument. It cannot, of course, be dismissed
as unnecessary and/or irrelevant trimming. It is unfortunate that
so many of us do not own or are not able to play authentic instruments.

However, the absence of an original instrument does not excuse one from
being able to play in as much of the correct performing style as is
possible with contemporary instruments.

And that leads me to a different but important topic. For those of you
about to come out of music schools and try to get jobs, you could do a
lot worse than to become proficient on original instrument clarinet
playing and to own a set of B-flat, A, and C original instrument
clarinets (or copies, of course). From time to time, players much
more experienced than you will be unable to accept an invitation to
play original instrument concerts because they don't own or are
unable to play the requested original instrument. I have no idea how
much work I have lost because I do not play or own an original
instrument basset horn. There is a group around here that did about
100 performances of Mozart's Requiem during the bicentennial year and
I was invited to tour with them (all over the world!!) to play the
Requiem and the Masonic Funeral Music and I could not. Dumb!!! There
must be 4 or 5 recordings of the Gran Partitta on original instruments
that I could not participate in for the same reason. Double dumb!!!!

And at the current stage of my musical career, it is too late to go
back and learn how to deal with the horns. One can make a nice
piece of change if one has the instruments and can deal with them
both from the viewpoint of execution excellence and performance
practice issues. The conductor will not stop to tell an original
instrument clarinet player what to do. He or she presumes that, since
the person has the instrument, they know what to do. But that may
not be a valid assumption on their part and your reputation as a
player can get hurt if 18th century performance practice is terra
incognita to you.

Just a thought. Thanks Cary!! You are always there for an excellent,
to-the-point correction.
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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
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