Klarinet Archive - Posting 000615.txt from 1998/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: K622 Trills
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:58:09 -0500

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.84
> Subj: K622 Trills

> I have been listening to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A (K622). It has
> lots of trills marked in the score. I thought the trill was passe
> during the classical period - a remnant of the baroque period and
> considered corny or old fashioned. Did Mozart have a particular
> affection for it?
>
> Also, comparing the Shifirin recording to the Marcellus, I note that Mr.
> Shifirin begins his trills on the higher note (in baroque fashion), but
> not so with Mr Marcellus. Any comments? Ideas?
>
> Michael Jones

Without attempting to take sides on behalf of either of the fine
players mentioned in the note above, it was always my experience that
Marcellus was an intuitive player and Shifirin a scholarly one. That
is, Marcellus did things in ways that he felt were appropriate to his
perspective of how things should go, andShifirin made an effort to
develop a broader vision.

So one could summarize by saying that Marcellus' trills are played the
way he thinks that trills should be played, and Shifirin's trills are
played the way his research allowed him to conclude how trills might
have been played in the 1780s.

As an example, I once sent Marcellus a very lengthy and scholarly
paper on the Gran Partitta. He was going to perform it a few months
later and I mistakenly thought that he might like to know about some
new perspectives about the works dynamics, notes, rhythms, etc. I
was later told that he read the first page and threw it in the garbage.
That's OK. That's his right and he was a classy enough musician
to handle a piece like that based on his long experience. He didn't
feel that this kind of research would replace his very personal
intuition. It is hard to argue with his perspective.

Now all of this is roughly equivalent to saying when you hear Marcellus'
recording of K. 622 you are probably not hearing how trills were
played in the 18th century or even how Marcellus believed trills were
played in the 18th century. What you are hearing is how Marcellus
like to play trills for this kind of music. But he may be absolutely
right and his instinct could have been perfect. I don't know. Neither
did he.

Schifirin, on the other hand, is very interested in the research
associated with playing music from this period. He believes that
he has something to learn (and I am not suggesting for one second
that Marcellus felt that he had nothing to learn) and he does make
investigations by reading the literature.

That he underwent the effort and expense to purchase a basset clarinet
and then record both K. 622 and K. 582 on in shows that he considers
these things important. It is difficult to know what Marcellus'
attitude might have been had the basset clarinet been available when
he recorded K. 622. My suspicion (quite personal and unconfirmed by
any facts at all) is that Marcellus would have played a traditional
version even had the basset clarinet been available.

As for trills, there are two perspectives of their performance. One
is that trills are predominantly begun on the upper note. The
evidence seems to confirm this but it is not a certainty. The other
view is that trills always begin on the upper note unless the trill
is approached from below (as in a rising passage that concludes with
a trill) in which case the trill simply begins but not on the upper
note. My view is that this is a little fussy, but I'm not at all
sure that it is incorrect.

A far greater problem than beginning a trill is how to end it. Is there
always a nachschlag to end everytrill? Big problem, no clear solution.

Another issue is how fast should the trilling passage be in relationship
to the tempo of the music. If you look in books of study from 1800 you
see that the speed of the trill is suggested to be no faster than
a 16th note pulse, but other books suggest a 32nd note pulse.

Should the trill begin slow and get faster? My opinion? No. That's
a Brahms trill, a romantic trill, an unclassical trill. But are
there books to support this opinion? No.

However, Michael Jones' note,which started all this, suggested that
the trill was passe by the time of the classic period; i.e., that
it was more a baroque ornament (or maybe rococco) than a classical
ornament. I disagree. There is hardly a single work written by any
composer from 1775 to 1825 that does not have an abudance of trills.

It is a very important ornament because it simulates trembling, an
emotion that almost every composer tried to emulate; i.e., the
trembling of love, of fear, of gooey things!! That is why the
more important and longer trills come at the end of phrases,
where the emotion is often at its peak, and that is why a cadenza
ends in a trill; i.e., because you were expected to be trembling
with pleasure at the cleverness of the player at that juncture of
the music. A trill is there to serve a specific emotional purpose.
It is not there to disrupt the emotion but to enhance and glorify it.
In opera, it invariably precedes the line "Kiss me, you fool!!"

That's hot stuff, you know.

'Scuse me. I got so worked up, I am now going to kiss my wife.

Trill..................................................

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