Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 1994/07

From: sabinson%ccvax.hepnet@-----.BITNET
Subj: Some Weird Thoughts on Recent Threads
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 1994 17:35:01 -0400

> On the other hand, there is a view that the composer knew exactly
> the timbre of what he or she was requesting and that it is the player's
> obligation to respect that wish. Thus, for example, Stravinsky's
> unaccompanied pieces, which call for a change of clarinet - and for
> an unaccompanied piece that is an important clue, were once heard by
> Stravinsky himself who later chewed out the player who performed them
> with a statement such as "I wrote for A clarinet for a purpose! Who
> are you to change what I wrote?"

Dan, did the clarinetist transpose the piece? (-: I don't know why people
think Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet is unaccompanied? I hear
all sorts of unwritten music. Can you imagine the clash of the clarinet
playing a half a tone above everyone else?
It makes sense that Stravinsky would demand a certain timbre, but
would a Beethoven without deafness have insisted on a C instrument had
there been "modern" clarinets in B-Flat or A at the proper pitch for his
orchestra (the extra keys, cork pads, subtle changes in the slope of holes,
etc.)? Maybe he wouldn't have liked them because they might distort the
"balance" of the orchestra, whatever that balance might be. (I like
"original" instrument interpretations because it is easier to hear the
woodwinds.) If we increase the number of strings and "modernize" all the
other instruments, would the sound then be palatable? Let's resurrect
Beethoven and take him with us to attend a "modern" interpretation of his
symphony. (This, for me, would include "original instrument"
interpretations.) Would he react to it like Stravinsky to the clarinetist
who played the A pieces on a B-Flat? I mean, Beethoven might think that
the piece in C was really being played in C-Sharp Major.
There are no answers to these questions. I would like to believe,
however, that Beethoven would like the performance where a certain kind of
magic takes place, independent of the forces used. Would Stravinsky have
noticed that an A clarinet wasn't being used if the performance was
extraordinary in a way not quite definable? (And if all the unwritten
instruments have been transposed so that the clarinet can sing in B-Flat?)

I had a weird experience this week. I had a recording of Bruch's 8
Pieces on the player. I play the pieces for B-Flat -- I don't own an
instrument in A. It passed through my mind as I listened, I could sound
like the professional clarinetist in the piece, and then it passed through
my mind that I didn't like the sound, especially at forte. It sounded too
easy, as if the reed were too light. As if the clarinetist were not
working. The sound -- dare I say it -- gulp -- was just not dark enough.
And then I think, "Wow, you think "dark" is difficult and "bright" is easy.
Maybe the clarinetist just makes it look easy." So I tried to remember
what I must have sounded like playing these pieces. Which means I am no
longer listening to the recording. I most probably sound a good deal more
disagreeable than the clarinetist of the recording. Then it struck me that
I did sound very much like the clarinetist in the recording. Everyone
reading this knows that I could not have possibly sounded like . . . (-:
(-: ROTFL!

Some time ago I posted here on the shock of hearing what Mozart did to
Handel's Acis and Galatea. If I had to go back to the "original" version,
I think my ear would have trouble for a while, the acoustic equivalent of
going on a low salt diet with little seasoning. Hospital food it would
seem to me at first. With time, however, I would hear differently. IMO,
it is not a tragedy to hear pieces on weird combos of instruments, as long
as the musicians believe in the music, and it was Stravinsky, in a way, who
has led me to this conclusion:

You must seek to add
To what you have, what you once had,
You have no right to share
Who you are with who you were.
No one can have it all,
That is forbidden.
You must learn to choose between.

One happy thing is every happy thing:
Two, is as if they had never been.

ERIC of the Archduke Rudolph's Fan Club.