Klarinet Archive - Posting 000069.txt from 1999/03

From: Richard Bush <rbushidioglot@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] About authenticity
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 02:42:13 -0500

Hello Dr. Goldman,

I am sure enjoying your posts. A couple of your comments caught my attention.
Just my two cents worth. All is meant in good humor.

> Composers of those times used the musical
> "language" of those times, and when one follows the rules and uses
> instruments with the timbers that the composer had in mind, I find that the
> music is much more effective and expressive than when we try to impose
> modern techniques etc. on it.

Playing some music with instruments that the composer had in mind is not always
economically, logistically and practically possible. Does Wagner or Richard
Strauss that calls for a Heckelphone require flying in one of maybe two people
in L.A. to achieve a satisfying performance, or will a Loree bass oboe do? What
if there just isn't either one available, player with horn or alternate horn,
within a time frame or budget? What then, scrap the piece from the program?

> The "language" of music crosses culture and time. You may not
> understand Elizabethan pronunciation but what does that have to do with
> being emotionally moved by a Lute piece by Dowland played on its proper
> instrument, with proper instrumental technique.

I guess I'm not too HIP. Some music is so wonderful that everyone wants to play
it. Bach instantly comes to mind. Not counting some of those funny orchestral
arrangements for orchestra, and whether everyone likes it or not, it is a fact
that Bach has been played on just about any instrument one could think of.
Maybe harmonica or accordion doesn't fill the bill for all tastes, but I just
happen to be a great fan of Glen Gould's recordings of the Goldberg Variations.
So I'm not to Hip, maybe just a little left of center.

> Many of the flute works I
> perform on historic instruments with their subtle variations of timber from
> note to note - each key having its own feeling - seem like boring uninspired
> drivel when played on the modern flute (with people like Tony Pay around I
> don't dare attempt historic clarinets - I could never come close).

Now, this is a most interesting part of older music. The colors of different
keys has truly been lost with the acceptance of equally spaced half step
intervals. Here is truly a chance to experience the relative purity of _home
keys_ and hear the more distressed sounds and less comfortable tunings or more
removed keys. Organ music on period instruments is one way to experience this.

> The
> problem is not in the composition, but in the use of an improper instrument
> without the subtlety of the original. The good composers intimately knew the
> instruments they wrote for, and used the qualities found on those
> instruments to best advantage.

Yes and no. I doubt Tchaikovski new squat about bassoon when he wrote some of
those almost impossible (even by today's standards on modern bassoon) unisons
with strings. They really rip. They are enough to make bassoonist's want to
slit their wrists or at least go out and get numbingly drunk after the concert.
And then there were occasional slips by composers, writing low A's for tenor
sax and that sort of stuff.

>
>
> Steve Goldman
> Glenview, IL
>
> sjgoldman@-----.com

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