Klarinet Archive - Posting 001310.txt from 1998/03

From: Ken Bryson <kbryson@-----.com>
Subj: Re: This business of instrumental substitution
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 17:40:23 -0500

Dan,

My little E flat clarinet, which is undergoing seemingly interminable
restoration and repair work, has never made me a cent and probably never
will as I intend to cling to my amateur status for dear life. I reserve
the right, therefore, to refer to the cute little thing as "eefer".

However, your points about not substituting instruments have been
finding a home in my heart, and I wanted you to know that I am arranging
to borrow a C Clarinet from my teacher for a performance in June. At
least, that all-important second clarinet part will be performed on the
correct instrument, and I am encouraging the first player to try to
track one down as well. Perhaps I am motivated also by a lingering fear
that you will appear in the audience and threaten grievous bodily harm
if we are playing the C parts on B flat clarinets (or was that
beefers?) Will you be eligible for a day pass or a weekend pass by
mid-June? Please check with your keepers and let me know.

Regards,

Nancy

Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
>
> In a recent and very interesting discussion of the importance of
> orchestral 2nd instruments, Av Galper brought up several cases where
> Karel Ancerl made instrumental substitutions because of the
> difficulty of the material as written. I think Av mentioned the
> use of the 2nd clarinet or an English horn to play the very difficult
> low note in place of the 2nd oboe.
>
> This business of instrumental substitution goes on constantly, so
> much so, that it has become a standard part of the orchestral world.
> I recently had a lengthy and somewhat quarrelsome discussion on the
> double reed bulletin board with respect to the use of the contrabassoon
> instead of the string bass in the Gran Partitta.
>
> And this entire realm of substituting one instrument for another
> for what are suggested to be valid reasons also includes as a
> valid subset, the realm of substituting one clarinet for another
> including B-flat for A (and vice versa) and, to the heart of the
> matter, either the B-flat or A for a C clarinet. It also
> subsumes the issue we spoke of at some length on this list about
> 3 months ago when the performance of Mozart's Titus was on the
> radio and a clarinet of traditional compass was used instead of
> one with a low d on it.
>
> All of these apparently different problems (which are in reality
> a single problem that takes on many forms) center around the
> assertion that "All that matters is pitch!" That is to say,
> when we play a work and certain instrumental problems arise,
> it is satisfactory to solve the problems by playing the requested
> pitch on another instrument.
>
> Timbre, chararacter of sound, and composer intention is invariably
> made into a secondary consideration as long as pitch requests
> are satisfied, ... by anyone who happens to be free at the moment.
>
> The contrabassoon discussion of the Gran Partitta was caused by
> the other party suggesting that the contrabassoon "sounded better"
> in the ensemble, and my retort (which I said tongue in cheek but
> with good reason) was that I thought it sounded better with a
> baritone saxophone.
>
> Ultimately, this is where it all leads. Reasonable people, trying
> to solve individual performance problems, take a pragmatic
> position, substituting this for that, B-flat clarinet for C
> clarinet, clarinet for oboe, contrabassoon for string bass,
> bass clarinet for bassoon, and eventually one can argue that
> pitched timpani can be substituted for piccolo since the
> pitch has been preserved (but not the register).
>
> This is the slippery slope that one gets to in all these
> instrumental substitutions, from Till Eulenspiegel's
> D clarinet part, to Mozart K. 622, to Sousa marches played
> by a band without an E-flat cornet, to a wind quintet
> arrangement of Beethoven, Op. 103. In every case, pitch
> has been preserved, but timbre, character, and composer
> intent have not.
>
> It is unchecked instrumental arrogance to presume that these
> things don't matter and that there is no significant impact on
> the music as a result of these decisions.
>
> And while I'm on a high horse, the E-flat clarinet being called
> an "eefer" is creeping into our discussions more and more.
> Shall be now call the B-flat clarinet a "beefer" and a D
> clarinet a "deefer," etc. Dignity, ladies and gentlemen,
> dignity. It is an E-flat clarinet. Anything that makes money
> for us should be called by its real name, not a nickname
> that sounds as if it were invented in the hills of Appalachia.
>
> Excluse me please, my keepers are coming to lock me up again.
> Send a cake with a file baked into it, please.
>
> =======================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
> leeson@-----.edu
> =======================================

   
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