Klarinet Archive - Posting 000735.txt from 2002/04

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Tony Pay, Articulation and K. 622
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 11:22:11 -0400

And there is yet another reason to commend Tony for his emphasis on
tonguing rather than slurring many passages. It is far more defensible
historically than any other phrasing technique. The bulk of the
manuscripts in Mozart's hand and that use clarinets in florid passages
(for example, K. 375, 388, 361, the Parto aria, K. 452 to name just a
few, and each of which is a major clarinet work) show very clear and
unambiguous descriptions of how Mozart's notates his clarinet parts. And
the fact is indisputable that many of those passages that have appeared
in earlier editions as slurred are in fact not slurred at all in the
manuscript. Some editor concluded that the passages should be slurred,
not Mozart.

The occasional response to this anomoly was always to presume that
Mozart was either lazy ("he didn't want to write all those slurs") or
stupid ("didn't Mozart realize that tongues don't move that fast?").
But the fact is that the surface texture of 18th century music was much
rougher than we are led to believe by editors from the Romantic period
of music (such as Brahms himself) who wanted the long line,
uninterrupted by the use of start-stop articulation.

The very worst case of this penchant for the long line and the non-use
of the tongue may be found in the Ricordi edition of K. 622, which every
Italian clarinet player grew up on because, as Tony mentioned, it was
the only authorized edition in the Italian conservatories for a long
time.

So what Tony has helped do, is restore a practice that never should have
been elminated, and would not have been had not the Romantic period
relegated the use of the tongue to a great more inactivity than it had
been used to in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Dan Leeson

HatNYC62@-----.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 4/25/02 4:13:32 AM, klarinet-digest-help@-----.org
> writes:
>
> << If I come clean about that recording, I have to say that I now don't
> play so much staccato, and it's all changed rather a lot in other ways
> too. Part of that is to do with getting better technically on the
> instrument. What's not often realised is that staccato is actually in
> many ways *easier* than legato, particularly on a period instrument,
> because you can control the weight of individual notes more precisely.
> If you have to slur, it's harder to make the passagework even -- but
> sometimes the end result is more satisfactory, even if you're less
> comfortable. >>
>
> Folks, read this paragraph and learn.
>
> Tony Pay is one of the best and most impressive models of great articulation
> on the clarinet in the last 50 years. And great technique in general, for
> that matter.
>
> Before I learned how to tongue properly and comprehensively in college, I
> wondered about Tony's K. 622 recording and all the tonguing.
>
> But after I learned proper articulation and particularly the stopped
> stacatto/prepared fingers technique from Mr. Marcellus, I realized what Tony
> says above is true. . .technically it is FAR EASIER to play a passage cleanly
> if you tongue it rather than slur it. This will be doubly true on an old
> instrument with many cross-fingerings and stuffy notes.
>
> Now of course, if the passage is faster than you can tongue, this doesn't
> apply (Tony can tongue very fast, probably even faster than I). And mixed
> articulations can be more difficult than EITHER all slurred or all tongued.
>
> If you don't believe me (or Tony) your articulation probably needs some work.
> It is a part of clarinet technique that is rarely taught well or even
> understood. All the important details are in Daniel Bonade's compendium. That
> book and some of Tony's recordings and Robert Marcellus's and Clark Brody's
> and Karl Leister's should help.
>
> David Hattner, NYC
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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