Klarinet Archive - Posting 000695.txt from 2000/10

From: BEresman@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 12 Oct 2000 16:08:05 -0000 Issue 2605
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 16:22:58 -0400

I'm not a scholar of Mozart, and while i am a reasonably accomplished
clarinetist i know that i will never attain the stature of many of those on
the list. I occasionally play professionally, and somewhat more
occasionally play for fun. I can hardly afford the time it requires to
keep my abilities up to where they are right now, much less to improve
them--but i do my best anyway, because i love to play clarinet.

Dan writes:

>Bill comments on what I wrote by saying, "Phrases such as 'cannot
>tolerate that thing if it is put in by a contemporary musician' and 'we
>have no business playing that note' imply that something is ethically
>wrong."

and goes on to say:

>But the fact is that that is how he and I and all of us are measured when
we play.
>And when we don't (or when our departure from that style becomes massively
abusive),
>our performances are not going to be tolerated for very long, and it will
be said of us
>that we have no business doing that thing.

I won't disagree that we are all measured when we play--but would suggest
that the yardstick by which we are all measured varies depending on the
audience. For a professional who is playing the Mozart with a professional
orchestra, i would think there would be a great number of yardsticks. One
would be that of the conductor, who presumably has a good grasp on current
scholarly thinking and would expect the soloist to conform to the "current
thinking" on what might have been done at the time it was written. Another
would be that of orchestra members, who would also have an understanding of
Mozart and of performance practices in his times, and would appreciate the
inclusion of tasteful eingange in the proper context, but would probably
not know (or care much) that D is acceptable but E is not when playing
Mozart ( i know that this is somewhat speculative on my part and i will no
doubt be called to task for stating such a thing without having a
statistically significant poll of orchestra members at hand. Oh, well...).

A third yardstick would be the yardstick used by the average concertgoers,
who probably wouldn't notice at all. A subset of that is the clarinetists
in the audience who will notice any departure from what they may believe to
be acceptable practices, but hopefully would not allow that to detract from
enjoying a fellow clarinetist's playing. Another subset might be those
scholars in the crowd who actually are fluent in the classical performance
practices and would notice some of the more subtle nuances. A fourth
yardstick would be the critics, who i will not further discuss in deference
to the younger members of the list...

I'm sure others could be defined. But what i'm driving at is that i think
the vast majority of your audience--as a professional--won't know or care.
For that portion of us on the list who are not primarily professional
musicians, even fewer of those who hear us will care. That's not to say
that we should feel free to take any artistic license--but most of us
wouldn't. Even if i had a basset saxophone that could reach all of the low
notes on K622, i wouldn't use it for that purpose (at least not in public.
In private each of us has our own perversions...). It's good to know what
is the current scholarly thinking and to be willing to grow with that.
Still, just as it in not necessary for me to know Hebrew to understand what
the Bible says, it's also not necessary to be on the cutting edge of
Mozart-ology to appreciate the music therein--whether hearing or playing.

Brent Eresman
YSI Precision Temperature

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