Klarinet Archive - Posting 000124.txt from 1999/11
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Auditions (was, hard stuff)
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1999 18:41:29 -0500
On Wed, 3 Nov 1999 23:11:07 -0600 (CST), Ed Lacy said:
> On Thu, 4 Nov 1999, Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > I was recently the 'outside expert' in an audition that had its
> > silly aspects (like using the Mozart Concerto as one of the test
> > pieces)
>
> I'm very curious to know what it is about the Mozart that is "silly."
> Or, was it the audition that was silly. Please help me understand this
> statement.
Well, the short answer is that for various reasons, I don't think
the Mozart is the best piece to set in order to get an idea of how
suitable a candidate is for an orchestral position.
That doesn't mean that it isn't possible for a good player to
demonstrate their suitability by playing the Mozart. It's rather that
people tend to damage their chances for the wrong reasons when they
play the Mozart. And you don't want that.
My take on what we are doing in an audition is to try to find somebody
to fill a position we have vacant. We'd obviously like that person to
be the best person available for the job, too. (I'll say a bit more
about that below.)
So we'd like to test all the skills necessary for that person to do the
job. Also, because to do an audition is to put yourself in a strange
situation -- a much more more demanding situation than the job itself,
I'd say -- we'd like to do everything possible to hear the best of what
the person can offer.
With the Mozart, first there's a minor difficulty with the judges. The
way in which classical music is played is going through a re-evaluation,
and players are divided on the issue. This is our one big classical
concerto, moreover, and clarinet players tend to have rather definite
ideas on how it should go. So, though as a judge you can try to bracket
out your personal preferences, it's a problem.
But the major difficulty is that there are lots of editions with
different suggestions as to how to play. This means that the panel
can't assess how the player is bringing to life *what is written* (the
major task in an orchestra).
Then, there's a problem for the players, many of whom tend to try to use
the concerto as a vehicle for 'originality', thinking that the job is to
impress the panel with 'their' interpretation. In trying for this
originality, they are often 'quirky' in a way that the best of them
would never think of being in an orchestra.
Some of them are worried too, they tell me, by just such issues as the
issue of style, mentioned above. A common reaction of students to
my telling them about the underlying rules of the classical style is to
say, "but what would happen if I played it like that in an audition?"
Then, it's quite rare for students to play this piece regularly with the
piano, in the way they might with a Brahms sonata. So when they play,
they don't habitually relate to the piano in a way that shows their
grasp of the whole piece. (This isn't entirely their fault, either,
since dynamic markings in several of the editions, even the new
Breitkopf one, fail to take account of what goes on in the
accompaniment.)
For all these reasons, I'd say it's much better to hear them make sense
(if they can) of a Brahms sonata, written for the medium they're playing
it in. It tests sound, intonation, sense of balance, flexibility, and
fidelity to the score, as well as the ability to make the music live.
You need a good pianist.
I also wanted to say something more about the bit I wrote above:
> We'd obviously like that person to be the best person available for
> the job, too.
I think that sometimes this bit is made the most important bit. That
is, there is such concentration on ranking the players, and on
'fairness', that we look at the audition process as one of 'finding the
best player'.
The other, I would say more realistic way of looking at an audition is
as a way of establishing which of the players we think are plausible
candidates for a proper assessment, namely, to try out what happens when
they play in the section, in a series of public concerts.
Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339
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