Klarinet Archive - Posting 000585.txt from 2000/09

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] being expressive in Italian
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 23:38:24 -0400

On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 17:35:28 -0700 (PDT), Bilwright@-----.net said:

> Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > In the second movement of the second sonata [Brahms], only the third
> > of the first three clarinet phrases gets marked espressivo. How do
> > we make sense of that?
>
> Well.... the first step for _me_ would be to purchase a copy of it.
> Am I correct that you refer to Brahms Sonata for Clarinet (or Viola)
> and Piano No. 2 in Eb major, Opus 120/2?

Yes. By the way, I've returned everything here to 'standard'
formatting. I hope that makes it all clearer.

> This will be the first piece of 'serious' printed music that I've
> purchased. I hope that it doesn't cost a fortune, and I know that
> there's no way I can actually play it; but I would like to continue
> this discussion and so I need to have the printed music in front of
> me. Or visit a library. I'm not sure how 'open' the local university
> music library is to outsiders. I doubt that our public library has
> scores.

Any good music store will have this piece.

> ....anyway, I imagine that there are different editions of it. In
> order that we continue to discuss the same thing, do I need to be
> careful which edition look for?

There is an Urtext. Or the Peters edition is OK, ISTR.

> I don't want to buy a CD because that would short-circuit the
> discussion about _written_ instructions.

A CD would certainly contain the performer's interpretation of the
difference between the first two phrases and the third -- but actually
very many people ignore the instruction.

Still, you can hear 'behind' the interpretation to what the music
*might* be played like, can't you?

I think you have to have the music 'in your mind's ear' as you consider
the various possibilities.

I should say, by the way, that I don't have very high hopes for this
particular discussion. It's very hard to transmit verbally how one
might interpret 'espressivo' in this particular case. And as I say,
many performers don't 'show' it at all. So it can't be that
unequivocal.

All I was after in mentioning it was to make it clear that the use of
the word isn't always -- *can't* always be -- just bad musical/textual
writing, since it occurs so explicitly, twice (also on the recap), in
such a work by such a genius.

That doesn't mean, as I pointed out before, that it isn't *on occasion*
bad musical/textual writing, in the work of lesser composers.

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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