Klarinet Archive - Posting 000207.txt from 1999/07

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] New Chester edition of the Stravinsky 3 Pieces
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 11:20:10 -0400

On Wed, 7 Jul 1999 14:29:03 +0200 (MESZ), emv080@-----.de
said:

> I don't know enough about Stravinsky's theoretical background to
> decide about typo or not, but the discussion of the Bb or B in bar 19
> leads me to the question, if there is someone here who can enlighten
> me (or us) about how the pieces are structured, which scales are
> defined to get a better base for deciding?
>
> In diatonical scales it is often obvious when there is a typo. I must
> admit that I cannot decide, which way bar 19 has to be played.

Well, what's going on at that point is pretty clear, I would have said.
Starting at the upbeat to bar 14, there is a motif that ascends through
G, Ab and Bb, and another that goes G A C B A G, as at the beginning of
the movement. These two motifs alternate, with rhythmic modification
and elision, for some time, and having set up our expectations that
this alternation will continue, Stravinsky has to exit from it at some
point. The Bb sets up a slower exit, while the B natural is more of a
sudden shock.

[snip]

> > In fact, Stravinsky was often inconsistent about what he wanted. He
> > engaged in considerable discussion in print over other people's
> > tempi in the Rite, and recorded it himself several times. Yet when
> > you put all the evidence together, and try to make up your mind
> > 'what he wanted', you begin to wonder whether Stravinsky actually
> > existed, or was dreamed up by several ghost-writers.
> >
>
> Does this mean that Stravinsky himself did not know what he wanted or
> that he just didn't care?

Perhaps he thought he cared, but he didn't know whether he wanted to
care or not.

Richard Taruskin, in his 'Text and Act', talks a bit about Stravinsky's
elusive psychology, and he has also written a biography of Stravinsky
(which I haven't as yet read); doubtless there he discusses the matter
further.

> > I also much prefer the B natural in bar 19.
>
> Why is this so? Is this just 'feeling' or do you have other reasons?

Well, it *is* feeling -- but you don't want to knock feeling, or think
that you can capture its often very precise algorithms in words. 'Le
coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.'

One way of approaching it is to say that I think the choice is
determined by the pacing of the whole movement. As always in music, we
need some degree of surprise -- but that also requires some degree of
repetition in order to create the possibility of surprise. I find that
the whole thing works better with a dramatic stroke at that point -- but
you might not. (I'd also say that the evidence is that Stravinsky
thought so too.)

Another opportunity for a dramatic stroke is generated by the relative
disappearance of accents from around bar 20 on. There's one in bar 20,
one in bar 23, and one in bar 28; but then, like the wasps you think
have gone away at the picnic, they return in force in bars 30 and 31.

I notice that my software has thrown up a tagline on this occasion that
says precisely the opposite of what I say, in general, on this sort of
subject.

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

... I tell them there are no problems...only solutions...

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