Klarinet Archive - Posting 000481.txt from 1995/11

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Martin Pergler makes an observation
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 23:17:00 -0500

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Tue, 28 Nov 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> I was fascinated by Martin Pergler's note. In it he gave his assessment
> of Neidich's playing and was quite specific about what it was he did
> not care for. There were actually two issues: one had to do with his
> playing (speed of stacatto for example) and one had to do with something
> that Neidich did. The exact words were: "between the chord ending the adagio
> and starting off the allegro, he puts in a cl[arinet] cadenza, arpeggiating
> down and then meandering up. This doesn't appear in the parts of the
> edition I have seen."
>
> That comment of Martin is the subject of this note. It is a perfect
> example of 99% of the players having strayed so far from a knowledge
> of how to play music of this epoch that when someone (like Neidich)
> comes along and does what the composer directs him to do, he is subject
> to criticism. Martin, you could not be more in error, though it is not
> your fault. I suspect that you, like most players, have little training
> in what constitutes the subject of performance practice and it is a lack
> of knowledge of the practice that caused you to say what you said.
>
> In music of all periods, certain practices are assumed by all professional
> players. No one writes it down. It is that everyone knows about it
> and all do it that way. It is the practice of the day. For example,
> today we play minuets and trios in a very special way: first time
> through, all repeats; on the da capo, no repeats. You won't find it
> written down anywhere, but when players get together, that's what they
> do. It is the current performance practice for minuets and trios.
>
> In the classic and very early romantic repertoire, there were
> performance practices up the gazoo. Composers dropped hints here and
> there, and players did exactly what it was that was hinted at. Everyone
> knew it. Everyone did it.
>
> Take the cadenza, for example. The composer never said, "Play a cadenza
> here!". It was not necessary. Instead, he put out the cadenza signal,
> and there was only one such signal. He put a fermata on the tonic
> chord in the second inversion. That is a very unstable chord, and the
> signal was to the soloist to resolve that instability through a very
> stylizied dramatic cliche called the cadenza. Most 18th century players
> could make them up on the spot. They knew where to do it, when to do it,
> how to do it, and it was part of their training.
>
> The place to which you are referring in the Beethoven sextet is not
> a tonic chord in the second inversion and, therefore, no cadenza is
> requested there and Neidich, whatever he did, did not play a cadenza there.
> This is not just a matter of words, but of what a performer was supposed
> to do when the composer called for a cadenza. He or she did cadenza things
> and Neidich is not doing cadenza things at the point you mention even
> though you used those words in describing what he played. You, like most
> people, feel that when the orchestra stops and the player plays alone for
> a while, that must be a cadenza. No way!!
>
> The same problem occurs in the Mozart concerto and Mozart clarinet quintet.
> Everybody talks about "the cadenza in the Mozart concerto" despite the fact
> that there is none, there never has been, and it is damn unlikely that
> there is ever going to be one.
>
> So what is it that Neidich is doing at that spot?
>
> Another signal that all classical composers put out was to place a
> fermata over a dominant 7th chord at very dramatic places in a
> composition, usally where there was a change of key or a change of
> tempo, which is exactly what is happening in the Beethoven sextet at
> the very point you mentioned. Look at the music. That is a dominant
> 7th chord. And to any working musician of the 18th century that meant
> only one thing: EINGANG!!! which in English means "lead in."
>
> The player was expected to do Eingang things and whatever they were,
> they were miles away from cadenza things. The only similarities are
> that both are introduced by fermatas and both cause the soloist to play
> alone.
>
> There were three rules to an Eingang and Neidich follows every one:
>
> 1) the instrument which is to play the melody AFTER the
> dominant seventh chord is the person who plays the Eingang.
> That's the clarinet and that's why it was Neidich who did it.
> In the Gran Partitta at m. 14, it is also the clarinet. In
> the Mozart piano/wind quintet, it is the piano. Take a look!
>
> 2) the Eingang generally ends a semi tone before the first note
> of the new section; i.e., the 7th of the scale, though the
> second of the scale was often used. In this way, the lead into
> the new melody was made very cleaning and directly and most
> comfortably for the audience. The alternative is to have the
> melody played with no basis of a beginning; i.e., there is no
> lead into it.
>
> 3) keep the Eingang to about 15 seconds tops (although there
> are a few cases in Mozart concerti in which the Eingang that
> was put in by Mozart for a student who did not know how to do
> one was given a big hint). Some may be a little bigger, but never
> as long or as involved as a cadenza because the two things
> are not the same, serve different purposes, and have different
> rhetorical functions. Oh yes. The Eingang was invaraibly
> improvised on the spot.
>
> So to call an Eingang a cadenza is like calling a baseball a football.
> They are both balls, to be sure, but calling one the other will get you
> killed in some areas of the country. And calling an Eingang a cadenza
> would have gotten you killed in 1790.
>
> So Neidich, on seeing the signal given to him personally by Beethoven
> at that point in the composition made the right decision, did exactly
> the right thing, and is criticized by you for doing it.
>
> It's simply a case of the preponderance of clarinet players (and
> musicians in general) having no knowledge of what it is they are
> supposed to do when playing music of this period other than
> playing the written notes (and they should not even be doing that
> all the time).
>
> This is not a criticism of you. It is a criticism of our entire music
> education system which gives the impression that music is a laissez faire
> activity in which anyone can do anything they wish and it causes music
> to have little appropriate stylistic distinction between compositions from
> different epochs. It makes Tchaikovsky think that his Mozartian suite
> is just like Mozart's music. He must have been crazy to have written that
> piece and think that he was paying homage to Mozart. He was paying homage
> to his own ignorance about what were the constituent parts of Mozart's
> music. That he loved Mozart's music is clear. That he had no idea of
> what made it tick, is also very clear.
>
> One can do whatever one wishes, of course, but if one adopts that attitude
> then Mozart will sound like Brahms which will sound like Stravinsky. The
> most serious problem facing any student of music today is that they are
> generally not trained in the performance practices of the music periods in
> whichthey will be obliged to play. They all have great hands, and
> magnificent sounds, and sensational instincts, but there is damn little
> discipline that says "Music of this period has certain special character-
> istics and it is my business to make sure that these are displayed."
>
> Neidich is doing exactly what we should all be doing and he deserves
> no criticism for the doing of it. One might not like his execution,
> but one cannot argue with his scholarship.
>
> Have a nice day.
>
>
>
> ====================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> (leeson@-----.edu)
> ====================================
>

   
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