Klarinet Archive - Posting 001055.txt from 2001/02

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Landler of Mozart
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 08:30:36 -0500

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 15:05:11 -0800, leeson0@-----.net said:

> Very interesting note. In Kell's case we are speaking about his
> remarkable ability to play rubato extremely effectively. But he also
> took great care never to change the tempo itself. That is, he might
> very well alter the tempo of HIS part, but the string quartet drove
> along without change. So Kell would rob time at the beginning of the
> measure and then give it back by the end of the measure, and everything
> worked out fine.
>
> What I don't think works well at all is when ALL the players decide to
> do a rubato at the same moment and, in fact, I think that this is very
> damaging to the overall tempo.
>
> So what Kell did was exactly the way Mozart described his on rubato
> playing. He told his father that, while he might change the tempo in
> one hand, the other one drove on unmercifully.

Yes. I wasn't really thinking of the slow movements in Kell's
recordings, but rather of the sorts of rubato he does in faster
movements. (Mozart's comment was about tempo rubato in an Adagio.)

Tempo rubato in an Adagio serves a particular function. Of course, what
function Kell wants his rubato to serve in faster music is his own
affair, but I have to say it often goes against what I would want it to
do. As I said before, if your rubato always lingers on the first note,
it has the effect of putting energy where you don't want it, at the end.

Obviously, the effect appealed to Kell, or he wouldn't have done it, and
clearly it appeals to others too. I wasn't particularly aware of it
when I was 9 years old, but nowadays I feel that you lose more than you
gain if you do it that way, particularly to the degree he does it.

The business of the slight distortion of oom-cha cha in the Viennese
waltz is a much more delicate affair, and except at wild moments (when
the second beat is almost part of the first), it's almost imperceptible.
A related issue is playing the string quaver movement in the Adagio of
either quintet or concerto with the quavers 'not slow' at the beginning
of the bar, and 'not fast' at the end of the bar.

Compare the unease you generate if you make the repeated viola notes in
the slow movement of the G minor Symphony 'linger' at the beginning. It
all works much better if the time is 'taken', not at the beginning, but
towards the end of the bar.

The overall length of a bar is always the same, of course; it's just
that there's a very delicate change of pace through each bar.

> I am also not yet convinced that the Landler of which we are speaking
> (the 2nd trio of the minuet of K. 581) has to have this done for every
> performance; i.e., is this rubato playing a function of the player's
> personality or is it a function of the Landler itself?

I'd say the latter; but although it may be a part of the style of the
Landler, it obviously admits of degrees, as it does in the Viennese
waltz.

The three minuets (the minuet and the two trios) 'play with' the
relationship of the upbeat to the downbeat, and the nature of that play
is quite naturally one of the things you modulate. In that context,
these microchanges of beat placement have a quite objective purpose.
Their effect, when combined with changes of dynamic and tonecolour, is
to help divide the overall line into bars, to a greater or lesser
degree. So you might have done that anyway with this trio, even without
ever having heard of a Landler.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN artist: http://www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Psychoceramics: The study of crackpots.

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