Klarinet Archive - Posting 000713.txt from 2001/04

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: baroque trills
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 23:45:31 -0400

on 4/29/01 10:36 AM, MVinquist@-----.com wrote:

>See Betty Bang Mather's book on ornamentation and,
>more generally, Donnington.
>
Mather is another good source, and one I forgot when I posted last night.

>However, the Gordon Jacob Concertino is really a mid-20th century piece,
>using material from Tartini adapted for 20th century performance and 20th
>century tastes. The tunes and harmony are Tartini, but the sound is Jacob.
>
>This is not the Mozart Concerto, where we are trying to discover what Mozart
>would have expected and what Stadler would have done. As far as I know,
>Jacob would have expected the clarinet soloist to start trills on the main
>note, and you should probably do so, too; you should certainly do so on the
>trills that don't work (for you) if you start them on the upper note.

A colleague of mine who was about to perform this with orchestra (rental,
from Boosey) did some research into the original. The music is literally
lifted out of two different Tartini violin sonatas. I believe it's the
third movement that actually contains parts of two different movements of
original Tartini. If anyone needs chapter and verse, I'll be happy to
look it up and report.

Baroque trills have a pretty clearly defined performance practice
outlined in Mather, C.P.E. Bach and Quantz, and without a lot of reading,
I can't give accurate details right now. But I seem to remember that some
start from above, and some from the main note, depending on the direction
of approach to the trill (and probably other issues?). The difficulty is
that Tartini falls in the cracks chronologically, and is Italian, whereas
Quantz et. al. are German.

IMHO (and I teach this piece to students this way) you should figure out
which trills start from the main note and which from above, and play it
that way, in spite of the fact that it's a 20th century arrangement. The
arrangement consists of substituting the clarinet for a violin, and
orchestrating the keyboard part (if you're playing that version). Since
the melodic material and the harmonies are intact from the original, why
wouldn't you want to play the proper trills as well?

David

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

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