Klarinet Archive - Posting 000538.txt from 2001/08

From: Virginia Anderson <assembly1@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Eb clarinet music
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:25:01 -0400

on 29/8/01 9:15 pm, David Hattner HatNYC62@-----.com wrote:

> I highly recommend Sean's sonata for several reasons. First of all, it is a
> superb work, beautifully written for the instrument. Sean, as one of the
> world's outstanding eflat professionals, understands better than the majority
> of composers what the eflat clarinet is and what it isn't.
<snip>...
>I have played a lot of music written by clarinet
> players. Sean is as good a composer as any of them, and he is still composing.

On more general terms, working with a living composer directly can bring
great benefits for both player and composer - just look how good Mozart's
work for Stadler was.

Even if the composer doesn't play your instrument, you can educate him or
her in the features of your instrument (beyond orchestration books) and
things you can do with it. Even more fun is that if the composer doesn't
play your instrument you will give the premiere, you will establish the
interpretation of the piece at its first performance.

If you work with a composer they can feature what they like about your
playing: Barney Childs liked when I played long tones with teeth on reed in
indeterminate scores, so he put it in every piece he wrote for me (since my
teeth shifted with age, this got harder and I asked him not to put it in so
much, but he kept doing it). Once he heard me improvising by moving my
fingers about to random notes but only punching out sounds now and then,
resulting in kind of half-heard noises. Barney's notated version of this is
still the hardest part of _Instant Winners_ and he said that no one had got
it right (the way he heard me improvise) yet. Or you can specify things
that you like: I don't like many multiphonic sounds, so Christopher Hobbs
has never written them for me. When he wrote a multiphonic chorale in
_Rites of Passage_ for Phil Rehfeldt (who liked multiphonics), I guided
Chris to a group of multiphonics which didn't sound so much like vacuum
cleaners. Other success is serendipitous: if I'd have advised Michael
Parsons on the intonation problems common to Eb clarinets he wouldn't have
started _Arctic Instrumental Music_ with high eefers doing a long sustained
melody in octaves. But when our group, the Hartzell Hilton Band, first
played it in rehearsal, we all stopped after that section in shock with the
stark beauty of it.

I'd recommend that every player not involved solely in authentic performance
to work with a composer whose music they liked. In the current postmodern
era, one can find composers who work in all sorts of styles so tonal
curmudgeons can premiere great works as well as squeaky-door modernism fans.
If you're friends, it won't cost you anything; if you're both students,
you'll fill parts of two recitals with the same work. Best of all, there's
no pleasure as gratifying as the little footnote that says "World Premiere"
on the programme.

Cheers,

Virginia
--
Virginia Anderson
Leicester, UK
<vanderson@-----.uk>
Experimental Music Catalogue: <http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk>
...experimental music since 1969....

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