Klarinet Archive - Posting 000116.txt from 2000/07

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] von Weber Concertos 1 & 2 -Reply
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 16:44:34 -0400

Tony is not only absolutely correct, it could not have been said more
objectively. You find the very same phenomenon in vocal music of the
period, but there they are called "prosadic appogiature" because they
help emphasize the often tragic emotions of the text or "prose" (thus
"prosadic"). The dissonances are made evident by what the performer
does at those points. Any singer who does not recognize the invitations
given by the composer to do a very specific thing at those points was
guilty of creating what was called a "blunt ending." Same thing with
clarinet playing except that there is no prose at those points, though
one is expected to do the very thing that singers were asked to do.

It is the class of things that are only hinted at in the manuscript and
which the composer presumed that the performer knew all about that are
referred to as issues of "performance practice."

Apporgiature are simply one example of the many things that a performer
was presumed to know about, though not explicitly stated in the score,
just hinted at in notation.

Another example is the very first dynamic of a Mozart work. If you look
at the manuscripts you will find that every work begins with no dynamic
at all or else "piano." So if you are going to play the Jupiter
symphony, for example (which has no clarinets by the way) and there is
no dynamic, what do you do?? The answer to that question is another
issue of performance practice because everyone in Mozart's day would
have known exactly what to do.

Or when you play the minuet with two trios in the clarinet quintet, what
repeats do you take on the two da capos? Everyone in Mozart's day would
have known exactly what to do.

Very nicely said, Tony. Really well done.

Tony Pay wrote:
>
> On Mon, 03 Jul 2000 19:24:10 +0100, I said:
>
> > That's not to say that someone who already understands
> > phrase-structure would be particularly bothered. (Probably both of us
> > could follow the letter of Giampieri's suggestions without
> > compromising the musical sense of the score.) But students often
> > aren't able to cope with the notion of a surface gesture and an
> > underlying structure, and they simply 'play' what's written.
> >
> > A clean edition that follows Weber's manuscript is much easier to
> > discuss in the lesson, and that discussion allows the deeper structure
> > to emerge naturally. If you have constantly to ignore all these
> > crescendos and funny articulations, it's hard to get off the ground.
>
> It strikes me that it might be worthwhile to give a simple example of
> what I mean by this.
>
> There is a fundamental structure in classical music, called the
> 'appoggiatura'. An appoggiatura consists of a melodic note that is
> dissonant with the harmony of the accompaniment, resolving to a note
> that is consonant with the harmony of the accompaniment. Not
> unsurprisingly for something that moves from dissonance to consonance
> (or equivalently, from tension to relaxation) this structure needs to be
> understood and represented -- or, at least, not contradicted -- by the
> performer.
>
> Giampieri's dynamics and articulations sometimes reinforce and sometimes
> contradict appoggiaturas. Because the polarities
> 'dissonance/consonance' and 'tension/relaxation' have emotional
> counterparts -- for example, in the polarity 'rejection/acceptance' --
> following editorial dynamics literally may obscure appreciation of these
> important emotional cues.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
> ... Visa, Visa, Viso -> I shopped, I shopped, I ran out of cash.
>
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--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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