Klarinet Archive - Posting 000262.txt from 1995/03

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.NET>
Subj: Re: Yet MORE Weber
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 1995 14:54:46 -0500

Fred Jacobowitz wrote:

>Nichelle,
> No, in my experience, Alla Polacca simply means "like a Polish
>dance", and since there are dozens of different Polish dances, the rather
>stately polonaise could very well have been not necessarily what Weber
>had in mind. Certainly
>the music does NOT work very well slow. It is far too sprightly and
>interesting for that. Furthermore the last page-and-a-half would be
>positively boring at a standard polonaise tempo. Who knows? Maybe back
>then a polonaise was a faster dance? Offhand I don't now what kind of
>dance it would be but I venture to say that if you track down a Polish
>folk dance specialist he or she could probably identify one or two which
>would fit the bill.
> As for the Boosey edition, it won't do you any more good than the
>autograph would, and that didn't, as far as I know, have any metronome marks.
>A good example of a recorded slow tempo is Benny Goodman recording (I
>didn't say a good MUSICAL example!--only OF A SLOW TEMPO). You'll see
>that it just doesn't have any excitement or virtouso impressiveness (and
>not just because of the playing). I think every other recording goes a
>great deal faster. The old clarinets definitely COULD handle the tempo.
>There is a fabulous new recording with Anthony Pay, clarinetist, on a
>reconstructed six-keyed (I think) instrument. He gets around just fine.
>Good luck and enjoy.
>

Sorry, Fred, but Polacca =does= mean Polonaise, which is a "stately,
marchlike dance in triple time." However, "stately" does not imply slow.
In fact, marchlike usually implies quite the opposite. For example, in the
US, for one, standard march tempo is 120 beats per minute, which is quite
fast.

Furthermore, there are many examples of polonaise's that are quite fast.
Listen to the Polonaise Brillante by Wieniawski, for example, or the famous
Chopin piano Polonaise.

Stately, is more a statement about the character of the music and how it is
to be played rather than at what speed.

I do agree with you that the piece should not be played slowly, because it
loses both much of its "marchlike" and "stately" character then. Virtually
any tempo above 100 beats per minute can work very nicely, IMHO.

I also agree that it should be played as a virtuoso and exciting piece,
because that was the nature of Weber's writing, and the nature of
performance practice at the time.

--------------------

Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net