Klarinet Archive - Posting 000105.txt from 2000/12

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: [kl]Brahms 3 (was Mahler 4)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 11:24:26 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Leeson [mailto:leeson0@-----.net]
> This entire thread began when you spoke of the tricks of the trade, and
> the importance of transposing. I suggest the most important trick of
> the trade is to own the right instruments.
>
I just had an experience last night that seems appropriate to this thread. I
played a rehearsal of Brahms 3 (certainly not the first time I've played
it). For those who've never played it, one of the problems in the first
movement has to do with instrument changes.

The symphony (in F major) is written almost entirely for Bb clarinet. The
two exceptional passages are two separate solos for A clarinet in the first
movement, the first near the beginning lasting 11 measures, the other in the
recapitulation lasting 6 measures. There are 5 beats (allegro con brio)
preceding the first passage in which to change instruments and 6 beats the
before the second solo. Four bars (10 beats - trust me, the meter changes)
follow each passage before an important and exposed entrance back on the Bb
instrument. All the music on both sides of the instrument changes MUST be
played - they aren't tuttis you can miss with nobody the wiser.

My usual way of dealing with this in the past has been to transpose the
entire opening to A clarinet, risking the one change after the first solo.
In fact, when the conductor repeats the exposition, I've done the entire
exposition the first time through on A, changing only the second time. The
passages, I should interject, _DO_ lie much more easily on the correct
instruments. Transposing them makes them much more awkward, so Brahms's
motivation here seems clear. With the exhortations of Roger, Dan and others
on the list, however, last night I tried two alternatives. The first time
through the exposition, I tried using the correct instruments, but I put a
separate mouthpiece on the A with a reed that was similar to the one I was
playing on the Bb. The problem was that they weren't exactly the same, and
the couple of notes it took me to make the adjustment were unfortunately the
first two notes of a major solo. I suppose I could practice that adjustment,
but it seemed like a risk nonetheless. The second time through, I tried
taking heart (or mouthpiece) in hand and actually moving the mouthpiece
between instruments. Fortunately, the conductor last night did everything at
molasses tempi (I'll bet the whole run-through at the end took ten minutes
longer than usual), so the changes were actually possible if nerve-wracking.
On the change back to Bb, however, my ligature came loose and by the time I
had things back together, eight bars of relatively crucial passage work had
gone by. Nine times out of ten, I'd have gotten the mouthpiece out of the A
without a problem. This one time, though, is the exception that scares me
out of trying to do it this way in a performance. In fact, again with the
tempo helping, I was able to make the changes in the recapitulation, though
without any time to spare (a faster tempo would almost certainly have done
me in).

The best solution, in my view, would be to re-write the parts and give the
exposed passages preceding and following the A clarinet solos to the second
player (who is resting) or at least to cue the passages into the second part
for emergency coverage. But I've never actually heard of this being done.
The second best solution, from my perspective, reinforced by last night's
experience, is to transpose as I've always done. It's risk-free. I'd be
willing to bet (with no way to prove it) that few of the commercial
recordings available were done without resort to transposition of some part
of the clarinet 1 part.

There are similar places in scores by Mahler, Wagner, and other Romantics
who because of frequently shifting key centers write frequent instrument
changes, often without any apparent regard for their practicality. I have, I
think, come to agree, for example, that the second movement of Brahms 1
ought to be done on A clarinet, not as I was taught to do, transposed to Bb
to avoid the cold instrument problem. Other substitutions I was taught were
acceptable and indeed standard to avoid a lot of switching or even to make
passages less technically awkward are arguably not now so "standard," and I
tend to accept in general that the composer's instructions ought to be
adhered to. The exception is, I think, when the performance may be
jeopardized by changes that are impractical. It may not be our
responsibility to "correct" the composer or make aesthetic choices counter
to the ones he/she made at the time of a work's creation, but it _is_ within
our prerogative, I think, to ignore instructions that are in some way stupid
(I know the word is strong), that will predictably cause a more serious
performance flaw than a slight (and to most people undetectable) change of
timbre.

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