Klarinet Archive - Posting 000460.txt from 1995/11

From: Martin Pergler <pergler@-----.EDU>
Subj: Beethoven Wind Sextett as WWQuint / Neidich
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:15:23 -0500

Hello all...

getting home from rehearsal last night, I turned on the radio and
heard Beethoven's Eb Sextett Op71 for 2Cl,2Hn,2Bn...being played by a
wind quintet. For I while, I thought I was just having delusions
(an evening of trumpets blaring Tchaikovskij and Shostakovitch in
my ears made this seem a reasonable supposition) but the announcer
labelled listed it afterwards as "a completion of B's Quintet in
Eb, Op. 71, played by the Belgian Wind Quintet". Does anyone know
the story behind this?

I have a recording of the Sextett by Neidich and Mozzafiato (The Beehoven
Wind Music Disc on Sony). The notes there mention the Sextett as being
written in 1796, but "probably not played until 1805" and published by
Breitkopf and Hartel in 1810. No word about other instrumentations. The
quintet version seemed, as far as I could tell for I don't know the work
that well, just a reinstrumentation (incidentally with the cl keeping most
of the solistic licks of cl 1 in the sextett).

Anyway, periodically people on this list mention liking or disliking
cerain features of Neidich's playing. Invariably someone comes back and
says "be specific". This seems like a good opportunity for me to try to
be specific in one instance, in the hopes that it will provoke discussion.

In preface, let me say that unlike some members of this board, I don't know
Mr. Neidich (I am only a math grad student who happens to play clarinet for
fun). In general, I greatly admire his playing and musicianship.

The first movement of the Sextett is an adagio-allegro. The adagio ends
on a big held chord, and 1st clar leads off the allegro with a solo
staccato melody. After the others join in, 1st clar has a few solistic
fast roulades (two types, each repeated). Two features about Neidich's
interpretation: 1) between the chord ending the adagio and starting off
the allegro, he puts in a cl cadenza, arpeggiating down and then
meandering up. This doesn't appear in the parts in the edition I have
seen. 2) some of the roulades are tongued at hyper fast speeds. The parts
I have seen are written slurred (this may be editorial).

I rather like 2). These are passages meant to be virtuosic, and he is
capable of adding this extra twist. Tongueing some and slurring some adds
variety in the same way that I am familiar from, say, baroque sonatas
(which I play a lot on recorder). I'm not that thrilled with 1). To me,
the adagio has a natural ensemble texture, linked with its slow meter.
Beethoven already contrasts this with the solo staccato melody of the clar
starting the allegro, which already resolves the rhythmic and harmonic
tension. A cadenza at his point seems to disrupt this resolution.
Personally, I would be happy with no extra ornamenation at this point,
though a short little ornament or arpeggio alone might be nice too. I
would also be happy with the cadenza if the structure of the piece was
similar before and after the point in question.

Comments? I repeat that my hope is to try to start a discussion from which
I and perhaps others can learn something, not to start a Klarinet
"Commission of Inquiry" into Sony recording #(whatever).

Martin

-------------------------------------------------------
Martin Pergler pergler@-----.edu
Grad student, Mathematics http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~pergler
Univ. of Chicago