Klarinet Archive - Posting 000094.txt from 1998/11

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] re:Fingering Help for fast-high playing- LONG!
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:29:33 -0500

At 12:48 PM 11/3/98 EST, GrabnerWG wrote:
>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! :-)
>
>***************************************************************************
***
>*******
> >>
>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").
>

Which, for anyone who might have missed it, is EXACTLY what the little
":-)" at the end of my post meant. I'm on YOUR side!

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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