Klarinet Archive - Posting 000276.txt from 1996/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Crow as an occasional diet
Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 09:57:26 -0400

I'm eating crow this week but when it is accompanied by a
growth in learning, then the dish is delicious, particularly when
the dessert is humble pie.

On at least three occasions over the past 24 months we have
had extensive discussion on this list having to do with the
composer's perspective of which clarinet pitches to use when
writing for the instrument. That is to say, today's composer is
a free agent to chose any clarinet s/he wishes and the
suggestion offered by me was that composers selected a
particular clarinet as much (if not more) for its characteristic
sound than for its influence on the written key signature. I
think that everyone was in agreement that Richard Strauss was
such a composer and there is even evidence to show his view
about the use of the C clarinet and how opposed he was when
a clarinetist arbitrarily substituted a B-flat clarinet in place of
that.

Anyway, all three discussions were delicious. I learned a great
deal but came out of all three still unmoved in my subjective
view about the reasons for choice of clarinet pitch.

Now comes the crow part!

I particularly stressed that Mozart's clarinet writing decisions
(and Beethoven's and Schubert's) were very much influenced by
sound and stated that it was wrong for the player to make
arbitrary substitutions so as to simplify his or her life.

As for the first assertion (i.e., Mozart's motivation), wrong,
wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. But it took a lot of research
and no small effort to abandon that position. As for the
second assertion (i.e., what the player's duty is with respect to
substitutions), I still remain unchanged in that position, but
only one retreat at a time is permissible in any sortie.

For those interested in the technical details of what happened
to change my mind, I refer you to Stan Geidel's website where
I summarized some research I recently completed. I didn't do
the research to support or contradict my own view on the
matter, only for a technical paper that Bob Levin and I are
doing for the Mozart Jahrbuch.

You may remember my asking about early clarinet tutors on
this list about 4-5 months ago and many of you suggested
specific tutors in precisely the era of interest to me. Well, it
turns out that nearby Stanford University has over 200 tutors
for woodwind instruments between 1680 and 1830 (most of
them for flute, but at least 20 for clarinet). There are also a
number of texts on instrumentation from that same era and it
took several months to go through them all, read them,
translate them, and absorb what turned out to be overwhelming
evidence explaining why Mozart (or anybody else up to 1825)
chose a particular clarinet, and it had nothing to do with sound
character, nothing at all.

Apparently, there was an orthodoxy in place that dictated how
many sharps and/or flats a clarinet was permitted to have in its
key signature. And the protocol, up to at least 1825, said, in
paraphrased form, "If you write in the sounding key of xxxx,
you are obliged to use a clarinet pitched in yyyy so that you do
not go outside the existing convention of exceeding a specific
number of sharps and/or flats in the written key signature."

There are lots of reasons why the convention was put in place,
but I won't describe them here; only that the conventions
existed, are referenced by every clarinet tutor printed between
1750 and 1825, and applicable to every country in which
clarinets were played. The evidence consists not only of explicit
statements to the effect paraphrased above, but also of implicit
acquiescence to the rule by providing exercises only in "legal"
keys.

Now, after having been forced to use a clarinet in C or B-flat
or A, it is still my contention that the sound character of the
instrument forced on the composer was exploited by that
composer and, further, that the sound pallet of the whole
composition is dependent on it, but that is not an argument
that I wish to poke at again.

Suffice it say, that crow, when it is deserved, must be eaten
publicly, and the comments I made about composer motivation
in the selection of a particular clarinet were and are absolutely
incorrect, at least as they applied to the classic period. Once
we get to the late Romantic era, I'm hanging in there; i.e.,
sound character was a significant influence on choice of
clarinets.

Oh well. I'm learning.

And the business just posted about why the clarinet overblows
a 12th was very important in understanding this entire issue.
In fact, it is because clarinets overblow a 12th that this entire
phenomenon arose.

The interrelations are fantastic.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================