Klarinet Archive - Posting 000662.txt from 2002/04
From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart Concerto Competition
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 16:33:43 -0400
I thank Mark for having posted this most interesting web page about an
Italian organization having a contest in which players of wind
instruments will compete in determining who plays the Mozart wind
concerti best.
I want to limit my comments to the clarinet concerto portion of the
competition. What I say may or may not be true for the clarinet (though
I believe it to be), but I have no way of knowing if it is true or not
for the other wind instruments.
I have a basic problem with this specific competition, and a suggestion
for anyone with the courage to enter it.
My problem has to do with the judges. Since the competition is going to
take place in Italy, I have to assume that the judges will be
predominantly from the repertoire of Italian players. While there may
be a German, an Austrian, a Frenchman, or an American or two, my guess
is that the decision will be made predominantly by Italian clarinetists.
And having said that, let me indicate why this particular national mix
is troublesome. I offer the hypothesis that there are few Italian
clarinet players now alive who have been able to make any contribution
to the 18th century school of clarinet playing, either from the
viewpoint of performance practice issues, or their interest in the use
of the basset clarinet. They are unlikely to have read the literature
on the performance of 18th century Viennese clarinet music either
because it does not interest them or they cannot read the languages
effectively. There is almost no Italian literature dealing with these
critical issues and their views on the subject can be characterized as
medieval.
I do not suggest that Italian clarinetists are poor players. On the
contrary. Their mechanical skills are legendary, but not in this arena.
The playing of clarinet repertoire from ca. 1750 to ca. 1800 is almost
devoid of Italian clarinetists making a significant contribution to
issues of performance practice or the use of the basset clarinet.
Therefore, there is a serious question if the Italian judges can measure
candidates with anything approaching objectivity and a contemporary
understanding of how they should be judging this contest.
The days when a fine technician could get up and play K. 622 flawlessly
and win a competition on that basis alone are over! Any player who does
not know how to handle important performance practice issues of K. 622
(for example, what is supposed to be done in an eingang; for example,
the matter of improvisation; for example, the use of the basset notes;
for example, the style issues associated with grace notes; for example,
trills, mordents, apporgiature, etc.) is no longer really going to be a
candidate for such a contest. It is not only how well you play, but how
much you know about how to play this kind of music.
Any player who goes to that contest without a basset clarinet is doing a
very foolish thing, and it will simply show that they are not on top of
how to play that work. If some player in Ohio performs the work with
his local symphony and does so with a traditional clarinet, he or she
cannot be faulted. But if that same player shows up at an international
competition with the same attitude, then he or she shows something
entirely different, namely that he or she does not know what is
happening.
For an international competition of this magnitude, you have to show a
lot more than fast hands and a beautiful melifluous tone. You have to
buy a basset clarinet and learn how to play it. Failure to do so, and,
in my opinion, you are out of the contest.
About 20 or 25 years ago, just such a contest was held in Strassbourg, I
think. Great players showed up, some of them being in the forefront of
clarinet playing in America and the world today. And one of the judges
(whose name I will not give because he was such an idiot) rejected the
three best ones because, as he said, "They don't really know how to play
Mozart." What I think he meant was that only he knew how to play
Mozart. Quelle schmuck!
Well if an attendee gets an idiot like that today, s/he might survive if
the judging contains a lot of people who know something. But if all the
judges are from the orchestras of Italy that I have heard, 18th century
style issues will go right over their heads like they were not part of
the 20th century.
Dan
Mark Charette wrote:
>
> FYI:
>
> http://www.mozartitalia.org/uk/news/concorso_internazionale01.html
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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