Klarinet Archive - Posting 000712.txt from 1997/08

From: deerich@-----.net
Subj: Contests
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 23:07:56 -0400

A significant point about contests, is that they ARE NOT recitals or
public performances.

Contests are intended to allow the student to display his ability and be
rated on that ability. Thus when the contest lists show pieces that are
too long to do in the allotted time limit, I doubt that it is due to
ignorance on the part of the committee. They are probably well aware of
the fact that pieces like Copeland or Mozart would require significant
cuts. But pieces like this are needed not only to represent the
literature but to provide music that is sufficiently challenging to
advance students. Years ago I did Weber's Concertino and Rabaud's Solo
de Concours and despite the fact that these are "relatively short", even
these needed cuts to fit the time allotment that we had.

What is important to the judges is tone, phrasing, musical
interpretation, technical skill, etc. To evaluate a student in these
areas, one does not need to listen to 30 minutes of music. Six is
sufficient even if one is cutting the heart out of the piece. I do
suspect that the reasonableness of the cut enters into musical
interpretation though.

Besides that, I can't imagine any contest judge wanting to hear the
entire Copeland several times in one day! The last one to play, no
matter how good, would probably suffer in his score due to a burned out
judge.

So if you want to play a complete piece, uncut, get your school band to
put it on a program or join your local civic band and get them to put it
on a program.

Dee Hays
deerich@-----.net