Klarinet Archive - Posting 000412.txt from 1997/01

From: Roger Shilcock
Subj: Re: Bill Edinger's interesting comments (fwd)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 03:59:49 -0500

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:27:11 -0600
From: Edwin V. Lacy <el2%EVANSVILLE.EDU@-----.UK>
Subject: Re: Bill Edinger's interesting comments

On Wed, 22 Jan 1997, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> I am sorry Bill, but this transcends logic. The way it reads is
>
> 1. The composer writes
> 2. The performer decides on the fallibility of the composer
> 3. If fallible, believe nothing
> 4. If infallible, believe everything
>
> And there is a corrolary to this, too.
>
> 1. The performer is infallible

Two stories which may relate to this issue:

I was studying saxophone with Gene Rousseau, and playing the Bernard
Heiden Sonata. There was a place where an articulation didn't agree in
the exposition and the recapitulation of one of the movements. As
Heiden's studio was just down the hall at Indiana University from
Rousseau's, he suggested that I ask Heiden about it, which I did. Heiden
looked at me as though I had asked him to explain nuclear physics, and
said, "No one has ever asked me that before." He then proceded to study
the score for a long time, mumbling to himself. Then he handed it back to
me and said, "I can't remember - it has been too long since I wrote that.
Just articulate it whatever way you like."

My bassoon teacher, Leonard Sharrow, was playing one of the early
performances of the Poulenc Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, with Poulenc
himself playing the piano part. Sharrow and the oboist, whose name I
can't recall right now, were asking Poulenc questions about how certain
phrases should be played, hoping to get special insights from the
composer. However, Poulenc refused to be pinned down. He said things
like, "Play it the way that sounds best to you."

Now, some may like to quibble about whether Heiden or Poulenc are as
fastidious in this regard as some other composers, or whether such matters
as articulation and phrasing are as important to the aesthetic effect of a
work as which clarinet is used.

However, my problem with all this is that it seems entirely more likely to
me that composers such as Brahms, for the most part, tended to choose one
clarinet or the other on the basis of the convention that the Bb generally
works better in flat keys and the A in sharp keys, from a purely technical
standpoint. (I do realize that there are many exceptions.)

But, to follow the logic that the composer's designation of clarinet key
must be slavishly followed leads to some other necessary procedures.

1. The trumpets and horns must play on natural instruments rather than
valved ones for the first two symphonies.

2. The strings must send their instruments back to a repair shop and have
them altered to their 19th century standards: different neck angle,
different string material, different string tension, etc.

3. The timpanist must take off the plastic drum heads and replace them
with skin heads.

4. We must never play these works in large, modern concert halls, as they
would sound different than they did in Brahms day.

5. We must never listen to Brahms symphonies if we have ever heard any
music of later eras. Listening to Mahler, Schoenberg, Ives or Stockhausen
will most certainly "color" our hearing and understanding of Brahms.

To me, it's not a question of whether some clarinetist, or some several
clarinetists, or all clarinetists can tell which one is being played.
Rather, it is a matter of whether in the context of the full orchestra
texture, changing from one clarinet to another materially changes the
artistic effect of the piece. Assume for a moment that a clarinetist with
really keeen and experienced ears is listening to a performance of Brahms,
and assume further that the player doesn't know what the composer
originally designated in this regard. Would the work still have the same
aesthetic effect if the player chose a different clarinet next time. I
think it would.

Ed Lacy
*****************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
*****************************************************************

Dear Ed. L.:
Perhaps "authenticity" in Brahms seems the ultimate absurdity to you.
However, Roger Norrington and his London Classical Players are now
practising it - and, even more significantly, they do "authentic"
Schumann as well, which is the revelation any fan of Schumann's
symphonies would hope it to be - I think.
Roger Shilcock