Klarinet Archive - Posting 000824.txt from 1997/05

From: Robert Sales <rs@-----.uk>
Subj: RE: A clarinet
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 09:24:11 -0400

Is it known whether Rufus Airie was playing the first two pieces at the
correct pitch, i.e. was he transposing down a semitone (which I think
would require a low e flat) ? If not, then Stravinsky may well have
noticed the wrong pitch without being particularly aware of the 'wrong'
tone colour.

>----------
>From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu]
>Sent: 29 May 1997 11:18
>To: klarinet@-----.us
>Subject: RE: A clarinet
>
>> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.91
>> Subj: RE: A clarinet
>
>> On May 28 Dan Leeson wrote (I've snipped virtually all of his (as usual)
>> thoughtful comments):
>>
>> This is not a performance practice issue but a matter of a sonic pallette
>> as selected and used by the composer but arbitrarily ignored by the player.
>>
>> The question is: What evidence do we have that a certain composer selected
>> a certain clarinet for a certain composition because of the "sonic palette"
>> he or she wanted to create? As far as I can see, we never have such
>> evidence, unless the composer happened to say or write "I wanted the A
>> clarinet here for its distinctive sound," or at least, "Here I used the
>> distinctive sound of the A clarinet." As far as I know, Mozart, for
>> instance, never said such a thing -- if he had, surely Dan would know and
>> would have adduced this statement in support of his position.
>
>Gary - I cannot believe what I read. You want evidence that a
>certain composer selected a certain clarinet for a certain composition
>because of the sonic palette?
>
>Stravinsky: three pieces for unaccompanied clarinet, 2 for B-flat
>clarinet and 1 for A clarinet (or maybe the other way round, I forget).
>
>Rufus Airie was rehearsing the works in the hall that he was planning
>to use that evening. Stravinsky was there at Airie's request.
>
>Airie was playing all three works on one clarinet (i.e., ignoring
>Stravinsky's explicit request) and was stopped dead in his tracks
>by the composer.
>
>Stravinsky said, "I wrote the one you are playing on B-flat clarinet
>for a clarinet in A and that is the way I want it played."
>
>One can argue that Stravinsky "saw" the fact that Airie was using
>only one clarinet and was just showing off. Who knows?
>
>But you cannot ignore Stravinsky's motivation for writing those
>works for UNACCOMPANIED clarinet and requesting a switch from one
>instrument to another. There is no rational reason for doing this
>if it does not have to do with instrumental sound.
>
>As for the rest of your note, it is terrific, but if I respond,
>I am simply going to repeat myself (which I have probably done
>too many times already), so if it is OK with you, let me turn
>to the younger people on this list whose perspective of the
>clarinet is being formed and suggest the following to them:
>
> Don't believe anything about clarinet playing just
> because the "big expert" says so. It may be true.
> It may not be true. Depite the fact that it requires
> no special training or even any intelligence to hold
> an opinion, most of what you will hear about the
> clarinet and clarinet playing is raw, unvarnished,
> opinion or else hand-me-down stories that have little
> basis in fact. This is particularly true with
> respect to the unfortunate vocabulary used by many
> musicians, clarinet players included, that attempt
> to deal with very subtle, complex notions by using
> a single, badly chosen word that attempts to
> summarize them. Demand proof. Insist on rational
> thought. Probe. Think. It takes a great deal
> more than fast hands an three opinions to play
> the clarinet.
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Dan's argument, stripped to its essentials, seems to be this (this is an
>> invitation to Dan to tell me where I've misunderstood him):
>>
>> 1. Composer X had (or has) a very sensitive ear. Cf. Dan's "Mahler, who
>> had a pretty good ear" and "a person with as good an ear as Mozart (and
>> Beethoven, too)." In other words, X can (or could) tell the difference
>> between A, B flat and C clarinets.
>>
>> 2. Therefore if X uses (say) an A clarinet, it is because X wants the A
>> clarinet's particular contribution to the "sonic palette" X seeks.
>> (Fallback position: When X uses (say) an A clarinet, for whatever reason,
>> X will exploit the A clarinet's particular contribution to the "sonic
>> palette" X seeks.)
>>
>> 3. Therefore, if we use a B flat clarinet to play X's piece, we are
>> violating X's intention in a significant way -- i.e. not merely by using an
>> instrument that differs from the one X specified, but one that differs in a
>> way X regarded as important. We're screwing up X's sound palette!
>>
>> At first point 1 sounds trivially true -- don't all composers have good
>> ears? Well, no. In particular, there is no reason to think a priori that
>> a randomly selected composer could tell the difference between A, B flat
>> and C clarinets in a blind test consistently. So as a general argument,
>> this fails.
>>
>> Dan loads the argument by citing Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler. Suppose Dan
>> could prove to us that these composers could tell an A from a B flat,
>> consistently in a series of blind tests. (And just how would he do that,
>> if not by a rhetorical appeal to our enormous respect for these composers?
>> How can we tell which composers can distinguish clarinets and which can't?
>> For certainly not all can.) So what? This brings us to step 2. Did
>> Mozart write the Concerto and Quintet K. 581 in A major because he wanted
>> the special sound of the A clarinet? That's what step 2 says. Or did he
>> write the pieces for A clarinet because he wanted them to be in A major?
>> Isn't the latter a real possibility? Dan's reply (the fallback position
>> of step 2) is that this does not matter: even if Mozart wrote the Concerto
>> for A clarinet because he wanted it in the key of A,
>>
>> "once the clarinet of specific pitch was selected by virtue of the reason
>> above, is there any doubt that a person with as good an ear as Mozart
>> (and Beethoven, too) would not exploit that particular clarinet's unique
>> sound?"
>>
>> Here I confess puzzlement. However you state it, step 2 requires the
>> concept of the A clarinet's "unique sound." What does Dan mean by this?
>> Dan has, in a series of fascinating postings to Klarinet and articles on
>> sneezy, argued that "dark," "bright," "mellow" and other such terms do not
>> denote any intersubjectively meaningful properties of clarinet sound.
>> (Note that this view is consistent with the possibility that a given
>> person, say Mozart, could always tell whether a clarinet was an A or a B
>> flat -- it just means he could not explain the difference to anyone else in
>> intersubjectively meaningful terms. It's like chicken sexing.) But aren't
>> these the very terms that people use to describe the difference between the
>> sound of an A and that of a B flat? (E.g. Fred Jacobowitz, in a recent
>> posting, said the A's sound is "mellower" than the B flat's. I want to say
>> the same thing.) If these terms are meaningless, how can we describe the A
>> clarinet's "unique sound"? What could possibly make us think it is unique?
>>
>> On Dan's view, if I understand it, that leaves only experimentally
>> verifiable physical properties of clarinet sound as a basis to distinguish
>> A from B flat clarinets. Moreover, those objective properties must not
>> underlie the use of such ordinary words as "dark" and "bright" and "mellow"
>> to describe clarinet sound, for if they were the objective basis of such
>> talk, then such talk would be intersubjectively meaningful. At this point
>> I reach the limit of my knowledge, and can only ask: Are there any such
>> demonstrable differences between the sounds of A and B flat clarinets? If
>> not, then Dan's step 2 (and thus step 3) is inconsistent with his view that
>> "dark" etc. have no meaning.
>>
>> Well, I've gone on long enough. I hope this makes some sense. Thanks for
>> your patience with this quasi-philosophical stuff. I've found Dan's
>> comments always stimulating and often persuasive, and it may well be I've
>> missed his point here.
>>
>> Gary Young
>> Madison, WI
>>
>=======================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
>leeson@-----.edu
>=======================================
>