Klarinet Archive - Posting 000357.txt from 1996/03

From: thehat@-----.ORG
Subj: Re: C clarinets or just t
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 12:27:57 -0500

In a message dated 03-13-96 INTERNET: dap@-----.CANT wrote to ** ALL **:
Id> I'd like to hear from more orchestra players and what they
Id> would do: respect the composers wishes for whatever clarinet to use
Id> or transpose a passage to maybe solve a problem (tuning, fingers,
Id> quick change, etc).

In my experience with living composers I have discovered that what they most
wish is for their music to be played as well as possible. I suspect that
Debussy, well intentioned as he was in writing Afternoon of a Faun, would
have to admit that some of the clarinet changes are basically impossible.
Anyone here get out an extra reed and mouthpiece just to do that piece
"exactly as the composer wrote?"

I read somewhere that Muhfeld used his b-flat clarinet for one passage in Mvt.
II of the Brahms Quintet, most likely to avoid the awkward high F#. He was
also likely responsible for the 9/4 solo in the first monement of the third
symphony being changed to the A clarinet (this is why there is no time to
change horns here). If this change hadn't been made, how many of you would
insisit on playing this solo, this ideally written A clarinet passage, on the
b-flat clarinet?

Even if one had a d clarinet, who would play Till Eulenspiegel on it?
Certainly not I. A high g# at the end? Why bother? A high a on pg. 2? Just to
be macho? Not for me! I have also heard that Strauss himself admitted that
this should have been written for the e-flat clarinet. True or not, I stick
with the e-flat.

Transposition has been with us since the beginning of music. Opera singers
change the keys of arias to suit their voices, for instance. Can you imagine
a conductor telling a horn player which side of the double horn to use in a
passage? Or even telling a trumpet player to get an "a" trumpet for the
Stravinsky Octet? I have never even seen an "a" trumpet, though they are
often written for in Tchaikovsky, among others. Same with cornets, though
those apparently are being used more frequently again. I have never in my
experience seen one used in "Pethushka," though.

I don't presume to know more than any composer what is best for the music. I
only know what my ear tells me and if I can play better in tune or with a
smoother quality that to me fits the spirit of the music better, you bet I am
going to do it. It seems to me Schubert would be more interested in the fact
that his much is still being played after all these years than whether the
slow movement of the 9th is played of b-flat or a, (or whether the rest is
played on "c," for that matter.

By the way, here's something for you all to do, My teacher, Mr. Marcellus,
recorded Schubert 9 with George Szell twice. Once for CBS and once for EMI/
Angel. On one, he did the slow movement on A, the other he did on b-flat. He
told me once which was which. I defy anyone out there to listen to both
recordings and tell me which is which!

David Hattner
clarinetist-at-large, NYC
-> Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Eval:04Feb96
Origin: Hat's Nut House