Klarinet Archive - Posting 000313.txt from 1998/02

From: Ryan Lowe <ral@-----.net>
Subj: RE: Cadenza Books???
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 21:39:35 -0500

Out of curiosity, how does one know if there is _supposed_ to be a cadenza?
I can usually recognize cadential formulas, melodic statements, etc...
that would probably indicate the presence (or lack) of a cadenza, but there
are often ambiguities as to whether or not there should be one.

In places that I have found these ambiguities, I have consulted various
editions of the piece in question (when the urtext edition is unavailable)
and found a great discrepency in the results.

Are there any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Ryan lowe

>
>Good question Elizabeth. I don't think I have ever seen a book
>with cadenzas for clarinet but each edition of the Weber concerti,
>for example, may give several different options and even identify
>who created that particular cadenza.
>
>But here there is a caveat. You must be careful when you play a
>cadenza that the composer is really asking for a cadenza. On this
>list, which has many, many fine clarinetists and good scholars, I
>will often see someone asking about "the cadenza in the Mozart
>concerto." But there is no cadenza in the Mozart concerto, there
>never has been, and attempts to put one in at the traditional places
>often lead to catastrophes such as that suggested by Ibert, a monster
>of a cadenza fully 10 minutes long in place where none was requested.
>
>So your first job is to understand exactly what technical mechanism
>the composer uses to invite you to play a cadenza. The printing of
>the text "Cadenza" in any printed copy of any work, is not
>sufficiently reliable. You have to know how to recognize the
>invitiation. It is built into the music and its presence is
>unmistakable. So is the absence of the invitation (as in the
>three places in the Mozart concerto that most people talk about).
>
>So figure it out. Look at the Weber concerti. Look at the Mozart
>concerto. What is different about the invitations?
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>=======================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
>leeson@-----.edu
>=======================================
>
>