Klarinet Archive - Posting 000355.txt from 2000/10

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] All keys are not the same
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 16:44:58 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Leeson [mailto:leeson0@-----.net]
>
> I suspect our egos want us to believe that composers select this or that
> clarinet for sound character -- though in a few cases they do -- but the
> fact is that 99% of it is done because it makes the part easier to play,
> and the other 1/2% is due to mistakes on the part of the publishers.
> (snip)
> On that, let me tell a story. A clarinetist was taking an audition with
> "a local symphony" and he had only one clarinet with him, a B-flat. The
> conductor asked him to play something from the slow movement of the
> Mozart concerto, and the player did so, very beautifully, too. The
> conductor thanked and excused him saying later that he wouldn't hire
> anyone who played K. 622 on a B-flat clarinet. I think that this was
> social pressure demonstrated by the conductor, not fact.
>
> It would probably really bother only someone with perfect pitch because
> he was hearing something in the wrong key, but not necessarily that the
> B-flat clarinet character was so wrong-headed as to damage K. 622. I
> suspect that most of us would be unable to tell if K. 622 was played on
> a B-flat instrument with transposed parts for the orchestra.
>
I'm hesitant to reopen a thread that I remember generated a great deal of
heat a few years ago when I first joined Klarinet, but your last couple of
posts have intrigued me to the point of risking it. Have you changed your
mind (even a little) about the importance of playing on the clarinet
specified by the composer? As I remember it, your argument was that
composers choose the instrument for a variety of reasons, including (but not
necessarily) the technical convenience of the resulting key. Once chosen,
however, he/she then made compositional decisions based on that choice that
included timbral qualities of the instrument he had chosen. So, a composer
might choose a C clarinet because the piece is in C major, but once he's
chosen it he writes with consideration for its unique characteristics, tone
color (timbre) among them. Transposing to a different clarinet in
performance confounds those considerations and is therefore a serious
infidelity to the composer's intent.

Putting the two paragraphs I've quoted above seems to suggest the
possibility that it might not matter if I play a few bars of A clarinet
music on a Bb to avoid an instrument change that I can't make without
serious risk of missing an entrance.

I'm not trying to corner or trap you. I am really curious, with all possible
respect, about whether you've changed your mind about this in the couple of
years since it was last discussed here. Or have I misunderstood your recent
exchange of posts with Bill Wright?

Karl Krelove

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org