Klarinet Archive - Posting 000148.txt from 2002/02

From: notestaff@-----.de (David Glenn)
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart slow movement, grace note
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 08:05:50 -0500

Daniel Leeson wrote:

> Notestaff wrote:
>
> <<
> I haven't been lazy: I have checked many sources.

>

- snip -

>
> I would like to do it on the beat ... but if I am proved wrong, I am
> willing to accept it. Can anyone help??
> >>
>
> So tell me, who is going to "prove" you to be wrong? And how will this
> alleged "proof" be presented?

- snip -

>
>
> Keep in mind that we are speaking about a performance practice for which
> there is only very limited information about how it was done in the era
> under discussion. I could just as well argue that the grace note had to
> preceded by a Pater Noster in order to be performance-authentic, and if
> you don't do that, then your performance is technically incorrect and
> you are an artistic, aesthetic, and historic turd.
>
>

- snip -

>
> What are you afraid of? Do you really expect a bunch of people in the
> audience to stand up at the instant of execution of the grace note and
> say, "Unclean, unclean!!"?
>
> Tell you what I'll do. I'll come to the performance and write a
> non-review that says, "The execution of the grace notes in the slow
> movement was thoughtful. It may or may not have been correct. It is
> clear that the performer has studied the problem with great care, and
>

- snip -

>
>
> You are evidencing the personality of the "everybody but me knows how it
> should be done" neurotic performer. Some such people wind up paranoid.
> Keep in mind that everyone may really be out to get you, but screw them.
> Play it the way you feel it should played having considered all the
> evidence that you can get. And NOBODY will prove you wrong. They may
> hate it, but that's a story for another day.
>
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>

Dan,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful, heartfelt reply!

I guess I didn't make it clear but I intend to play that grace note how I
feel it unless I am convinced that this is an historically false practice
(which I already considered unlikely). My problem is more in how to
*convince the conductor* (and the concertmistress) to play it the same as I
do. I'm looking for a more weighty argument after failing to convince them
that they should do it how I do it because I am the soloist.

It's a sad situation but I have been playing with this group for a few years
and have witnessed this sort of thing with other soloists. The conductor
will often tell the soloist "well, it is done so and so on such and such a
recording" meaning you better do it that way too. I was just looking for
some help for the sake of the music...

There most certainly will be several persons in the audience who are
"shocked" at what I am going to do: playing on an unwieldy basset clarinet
with a very strange looking bent, bulbuous bell and ornamenting
recapitulations, playing passages an octave too low - or (gasp) an octave
too high, or even worse changing the shape of the line. Some of it
speculative - but what choice do I have!? I'm doing the best I can to play
Mozart and hoping the MS will turn up sometime.

By the way, you're welcome to come to the performance. It will be one of the
first with the "original" bell. Maybe that will save me from being an
"historical turd" ;-)

Best regards,

David

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