Klarinet Archive - Posting 000055.txt from 2000/12

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Mahler 4
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 21:18:19 -0500

on 12/1/00 1:04 PM, Walter Grabner wrote:

>For example, the middle movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto asks for
>C clarinet, while movements 1 and 3 use the A completely.
>
>John Mohler's solution was to play the middle movement on the A, making it
>unnecessary to pick up a cold horn, and play the part reading it in bass
>clef and changing the key signature. (In this case from G major to Bb major).
>
>I did exactly that, in a recent performance with violinist Rachel Barton.
>Worked beautifully. Thank you, John Mohler!!!!
>
>These are the tricks of the trade you need to know, in order to become
>successful.

on 12/1/00 1:35 PM, Daniel Leeson wrote:

>Walter, I sugggest that the "tricks of the trade you need to know in
>order to become successful" may not be in the best interest of the music
>that you are playing. You take the position that there are no
>consequences to arbitrarily substituting one clarinet type when the
>composer requests another, and I would offer the view that such
>consequences are not necessarily unimportant.
>
>You almost come around to that position when you agree that the C
>clarinet is becoming more common. But then you do not address the
>consequences of the playing the middle movement of the Beethoven violin
>concerto on an A clarinet when a C is explicitly requested. I offer the
>view that those consequences may have a significant effect on the aural
>character of what is being presented and, in any case, it is not what
>the composer requested.
>
>It's a complicated subject, to be sure, and one that is not entirely
>free of emotion, but I felt that I did not want your suggestion to go
>unchallenged. We might not agree on the subject, and I respect your
>right to have your own views on these things, but for anyone on the list
>who thinks that your point is universally accepted by all clarinetists
>should understand that there is at least one who thinks it to be a
>perspective that diminishes the music at the expense of ease to the
>clarinetist.

In most cases, I'm a believer in Dan's point of view about playing the
clarinet specified by the composer. This past year I played the Beethoven
Violin Concerto for the first time since buying Dan's C clarinet some
years back. It is an interesting and very different character of sound
from transposing the slow movement to either Bb or A clarinet. When the
player has a C clarinet, it is my feeling that it should be used.

I understand, of course, that in many circumstances players don't own
this instrument. My hope is that the C clarinet will become a required
instrument in the arsenal of every orchestral clarinetist. In every piece
of repertoire I have played where it is specified by the composer, it has
a significant effect on the sound of the passage. This includes (but is
not limited to) the last movement of Beethoven Sym #5.

Of course, if you don't own one, then you need to be able to transpose.
That, too, seems to me to be part of the arsenal of the professional
player. After I bought Dan's C clarinet, we played Tchaikovsky
"Mozartiana". The variation movement is for clarinet in C, and the
cadenza is much easier on that instrument. For a "talk & squawk" concert
we were doing excerpts of the Tchaikovsky, and the variation movement was
cut. When I showed up at the concert, it had been reinstated. Thank
goodness for years of practicing that transposition!

David

David Niethamer
Principal Clarinet, Richmond Symphony
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/

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