Klarinet Archive - Posting 000393.txt from 1998/02

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Identifying the place for a cadenza
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 09:56:54 -0500

Either Elizabeth has given up or she is going to take the easy road
and wait for the answer that I promised.

But a promise is a promise.

A cadenza is invariably thought of as a mechanism to show off the
technical abilities of the performer. There are music encyclopedias
today that make such an explicit statement; i.e., the performer is
expected to be dazzling in a cadenza and the purpose of the cadenza
is to provide such a display vehicle.

Even as a child, I found that confusing. And the reason why it is
not clear has to do with the fact that the cadenzas invariably come
at the end of a movement. So why there, all of a sudden, were
soloists supposed to strut their stuff? Had they not already done
so within the confines of the movement just played? Now, all of
a sudden, as the movement comes to a conclusion, the soloist is
going to convince me how fast s/he can play? Let me tell you, I
already know that!

And that brings me to the point of invitation for a cadenza as well
as its function.

A cadenza in Mozart's time all the way up through Mendelssohn and
even later was always introduced in exactly and only one way. It
was a big flag hung out by the composer that said, "Here it it!!"

At a moment of pause indicated by the fermata, the
underlying chord structure is a tonic chord in the second
inversion. For example, in a piano concerto in C major,
one hears a fermata with a C major chord, but in the bass is
a G. It is also called a 6-4 chord.

Now such a chord is inherently unstable. It ends nothing, something
that you would expect a major chord in the key signature to do. And
that instability has to be dealt with.

That is the function of the cadenza; i.e., to take the instability
and bring it to resolution that ends with a dominant 7th chord of
such clear intention that a dead chicken would know the piece was
just about over.

And the travel from the unstable tonic chord to the dominant 7th
was to be done by taking all (or many) of the principle themes
that had been played thus far in the movement, and improvising,
on the spot, an entire piece of music of perhaps 1 or 2 minutes,
that displayed the performer's imagination (not his/her technique).

Sure the performer was highlighted to do something special at that
point, and s/he may have had to play fast with lots of notes to
do just that, but the thing to be highlighted was not mere a display
of technique, it was a display of imagination.

Now that is one monstrous problem for the average player: "OK soloist,
you have heard the 10 or 11 major themes of this movement. Take some
arbitrary number of them and weave an improvisational fantasy based
on them that should last about 2 minutes at most, and end up on a
dominant 7th chord, preferably with a trill at the end, and it is
expected that you will be clever as all get out, that you will
dazzle me with your imaginative re-display of everything that I've
already heard, and I don't expect to hear anything played by anyone
else in the past. Your contribution must be unique, composed on
the spot, clever, and based on the major thematic and harmonic elements
that you have just expounded on. Are you ready? Is your career going
to go down the hole? Get set. Remember that one of your competitors
was here last year and he did the same concerto and his cadenza received
a 20 minute ovation. Keep that in mind, smart ass.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And all from a tonic chord in the second inversion. Miracles are made
from little things!!

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