Klarinet Archive - Posting 000086.txt from 1998/11

From: GrabnerWG@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] re:Fingering Help for fast-high playing- LONG! controversial! Fun!
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:48:21 -0500

In a message dated 11/3/98 4:32:54 AM Central Standard Time, bhausman@-----.com
writes:

<< reedman@-----.com
>writes:
>
><< Tricks similar to that make Daphnis a snap to play!
>
>David...I will try your "trick"
>
>However...I played the Liszt last spring. With the conductors concurrence,
the
>clarinets played soft staccato eighths notes , and left the "ducka-ducka"
>stuff to the flutes. It's not that we clarinets couldn't play the passage,
it
>just sounded a lot better this way! The end esult came out souding quite
good
>on the tape. That was an even easier "trick". LOL!!!!!
>
Ah, but now you have offended the composer by not following his
instructions EXACTLY! Poor Franz will be burning out the bearings in his
grave! :-)

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>>
With all due respect to the highly respected musician and composer: He didn't
have the faintest idea WHAT he was doing when he wrote that passage for
clarinets.

Which leads to to a point we have overlooked in our ongoing discussions.
Composers, however exhalted, are or were mere human beings. As human beings,
they are prone to make mistakes, ommissions, or make assumptions which later
on prove false (which is why years later some composers go back and rework old
pieces).

Sure, a work is a piece of ART, and we SHOULD do all that we can to try to
meet the composers intentions. But, sometimes a little trickery helps make the
effect, when trying literally to play an unplayable passage just makes a mess.

I would venture to say that EVERY successful Symphony clarinetist has had his
own "bag of tricks" which he/she used to portray the spirit of the music when
the instrument/technique was insufficient. Bonade went so far as to put some
of these in his famous excerpt book!

Only an amateur, in the worst sense of the word, tries to play every note.
(This from a person who is no longer a "professional").

Mr. Leeson.......comment???????

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