Klarinet Archive - Posting 000831.txt from 2002/03

From: "Mark Greeley" <mark4muzik@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Transposition
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 17:19:23 -0500

Greetings fellow "Listers" -

For the past few years, I have subscribed to the List, "chiming" in on
occasion. I felt it was time I actually started a thread on a new topic. I
am a doctoral student of Frank Kowalsky's at Florida State University, and
recently did a masterclass here for the studio on transposition. In the
masterclass at FSU, I focused on several things, the most obvious, honing
the skill as a part of daily practice, like we do with scales, long tones,
etc..

However, I am very interested in other people's opinions on the use of it in
other situations. My former teacher, Ron de Kant, whom I studied with while
getting my MM at the Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music, wrote an
article in The Clarinet on this subject, and focused in excerpt classes at
CCM on tranposition, more than just your typical Italian opera, which is
typically most, or all in C. For instance, a lot of clarinetists will
transpose famous passages such as Shostakovich 5, Brahms 1, Bartok Concerto
for Orchestra, Strauss Don Juan, etc... These are obviously not passages
for the C Clarinet, but for the A and Bb clarinet. Reasons for this include
consistency of line, pitch (cold horns after a movement or two), ease of
fingers, registration, etc.. I found it very interesting as I was
presenting the material, how many different opinions there are regarding
this.

Some "purists" believe that if Brahms wanted the 2nd movement of his 1st
symphony on the Bb clarinet, he would have written it accordingly. However,
others think that we need to do whatever we can as musicians to make it
easier on ourselves to have the most successful result in performance. As
an aside, I played the Brahms and the Shostakovich excerpts on both the Bb
and the A clarinet, asking the students to close their eyes and tell me if
they could detect any difference in the tone, connections, etc.. The
results were interesting. In some classes, I was able to "fool" them, while
in others it was obvious to them. I was curious as to what everyone on the
List thinks about this subject, if you have transposed in similar instances
(not just "C" clarinet passages), or you have just gotten "used to" making
it work on the intended instrument.

Looking forward to hearing back -

Mark

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