Klarinet Archive - Posting 000281.txt from 2000/07

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] von Weber Concertos 1 & 2 -Reply
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 20:11:23 -0400

On Mon, 03 Jul 2000 13:44:34 -0700, leeson0@-----.net said:

> Tony Pay wrote:

> > 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.

[snip]

> 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."

[snip]

> Very nicely said, Tony. Really well done.

Thank you, Dan. I do agree that there are things like this that are
matters of performance practice.

However, I was really rather thinking of things that are even more
fundamental than that.

Things like, that the 9th bar of the solo line is a diminution of the
first two bars of the solo line, and that therefore it's powerful for
them to have the same shape -- contra the Giampieri crescendo from bar 1
to bar 2, but *not* contra the idea that the first beat of bar 2 is an
appoggiatura.

Weber's manuscript allows this realisation, Giampieri gratuitiously
makes it difficult to see.

There's lots of that sort of thing -- and it's exactly the sort of thing
that I was complaining about in Pamela Weston's editions too.

What's really irritating about Pamela Weston's editions is that they
*claim to be better* than all of this Giampieri rubbish:

> Through lack of a proper understanding of his style early editions of
> his clarinet works were not good. Fifty years later the situation was
> made worse in editions made by Heinrich Baermann's clarinettist son and
> pianist grandson, both of them named Carl. These gentlemen not only
> created problems by ambiguous markings, but took gross liberties with
> the scores on the questionable grounds of performance traditions handed
> down from Heinrich Baermann. To rectify past mistakes and promote a true
> understanding of the composer's intentions, this urtext edtion has now
> been prepared, coinciding with the bicentenary of Weber's birth.

...but aren't.

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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