Klarinet Archive - Posting 001105.txt from 1999/05

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Schumann and Stravinsky
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 18:22:47 -0400

On Wed, 19 May 1999 10:37:15 -0400, fsheim@-----.com said:

> At 09:44 AM 5/19/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
> > I have a question on Schumann Op.73 and Stravinsky 3 pieces for
> > clarinet.
> >
> > It was pointed out long ago by Tony Pay that there is a connection
> > between these two works. Cmparing them piece by piece, there seems
> > to be a one to one correspondence. I also heard that Stravinsky had
> > this Schumann pieces in his mind while composing his 3 pieces.
> > However no one has ever spend more time explaining this clear.
> > Anybody would like to help me understand this issue better? Thank
> > you.
> >
> > Hsuan-Yi Chen
>
> Wow - I'd like to hear that too. The pieces are like day and night!
>
> Fred (fsheim@-----.com)

I've never heard that Stravinsky had the Schumann in mind when
composing the 3 pieces -- I'd be very interested if he did.

What I wrote about it, last year, was as follows:

> On Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:51:00 -0400 (EDT), hschen@-----.edu said:

> > On Thu, 08 Oct 1998 22:27:27 +0100, Tony@-----.uk said:
> >
> > > Just a few things to think about:
> > >
> > > Stravinsky said they were 'snapshots' of improvisations.
> > >
> > > Why is the loudest dynamic in the second piece, mf?
> > >
> > > 'How many people' are there in each of the movements? Are there
> > > *any*?
> > >
> > > Following on from this last, what high-level analogy might there
> > > be between these three pieces and the three movements of the
> > > Schumann Fantasiestucke?-)
>
> > I saw nobody contribute their thought on these interesting issues.
> > Perhaps Tony would like to talk a little bit more about it? The
> > three pieces is one of my favorites.
> >
> > Hsuan-Yi Chen
>
> A related discussion is one about 'register'.
>
> I once heard a talented young woman clarinettist, in a competition
> that I was adjudicating, play a piece of music called, 'The Willow
> Tree'. I said afterwards to her that if that was the way she played
> 'The Willow Tree', I'd be interested to hear her play 'My Passionate
> Affair'.
>
> This sort of thing is deeply misunderstood by some otherwise talented,
> and indeed famous performers. Heinz Holliger springs to mind.

[snip]

> You could say that a way of thinking about possible registers is to
> group them under the headings 'personal' and 'narrative'. (I don't
> have a developed taxonomy -- perhaps there is some terminology in
> studies of literature.) How does that sit with the two pieces 'The
> Willow Tree' and 'My Passionate Affair'? How about the Stravinsky, or
> the Schumann?

What I was trying to draw attention to was a possible pairwise
correspondence between the 'registers' of the three movements of the
Schumann and the 'registers' of the three movements of the Stravinsky.

I think that that the choice of a register is often the most interesting
decision you can make about how to play a piece, and you make such a
choice without in any way altering what is written. People do it in
many different ways of course, and it's one of the delights of music
that there is that possibility.

Apropos the Schumann and Stravinsky, if you want to know one way I have
of looking at the situation -- though it sounds a bit bald when put into
words -- I find the first movements are both inward and personal, the
second movements outward and narrative, and the third movements outward
and personal: what you might call, 'action'.

In the personal, inward register, the rules of 'mood' might be said to
apply. Because our moods are mediated chemically, they change only
slowly -- to choose an extreme example, you can't be happy one moment,
sad the next, and then immediately happy again. (Or, rather, you *can*
-- but then you communicate a quite unstable personality.) Changes of
mood normally follow their own particular sort of logic, and in the
Schumann we hear such logical movement between a range of moods. Though
the Stravinsky is more reflective, it is no less an inward journey. (Do
we perhaps wake up into the real world with a small jolt at the end?)

On the other hand, in the descriptive register, we can be talking about
the fairy princess, and then immediately switch to talking about the
wicked witch, or the fearsome giants. I find such switches
characteristic of both middle movements.

The personal, outward register might be a dance, as it seems to be in
the third movement of the Stravinsky. Or it might be something more
complex, as in the Schumann. I've sometimes thought of the third
movement of the Schumann as rather like being at a party, where you
dance, see old friends, watch everyone else for a bit, and then get
dragged back into the fray by an enthusiastic partner.

Of course, that's far from the whole story. After all, the (unwritten)
subtitle of the Schumann is "Triplets":-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Pound forehead on keyboard to continue.

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