Klarinet Archive - Posting 000513.txt from 2002/09

From: "Ed Maurey" <edsshop@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] My attempt to formalize my unstructured ideas
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 15:51:12 -0400

Great to have you back, Dan. Yes, my atheistic prayers were answered. We
do seem cleansed of the Godsters.

Regarding your homily on instrument choice: How can you expect us
clarinetists to take the choice of clarinets seriously when composers are
often too dumb to write for the proper one in the first place? They're
usually just pianists who's ears have long since been wrecked from
practising on beat-up, out of tune pianos. They couldn't tell the
difference between an A and a C clarinet...let alone a Bb and and an A!
They just want to have their stuff played well, and it's usually going to
sound best when played in the easiest key. They'd probably be touched that
we went to the bother.

Speaking of pianists. I attended a concert in a cold Canadian church a few
years ago featuring a wonderful pianist named Robert Kortgaard. Robert is
one of the nicest and wittiest guys of his species. He accompanied a
clarinetist who, due to the cold, was way, way flat for the first few of
minutes of the performance. After the concert I mentioned (with a smile) to
Robert that he was terribly sharp at the beginning of that clarinet piece.
He seemed quite surprised.

I really think pianists are just happy to have their notes in tune within
themselves. (The majority of the notes on a piano have three separate
strings.) Actually, I have never met a pianist who carried a tuning wrench
in his music case or even owned one! They're amazing creatures.

Ed Maurey

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Leeson" <leeson0@-----.net>
Subject: [kl] My attempt to formalize my unstructured ideas

> Now that I have watched the list for a month to assure myself that the
> party who was using it for religious purposes as much as the
> transmission of clarinet information is no longer doing so, I'm back as
> I said I would be.
>
> I am trying in this far too lengthy note, to formalize some rather
> unstructured ideas that I have voiced over the past 5 years of posting
> on this list.
>
> There were a number of postings made over the past several weeks that
> dealt with personal agendas in approaching the playing of this or that
> work, though I am not speaking about matters of artistic interpretation.
> It was more simple than that. One person mentioned how in this or that
> section of Stravinsky's second version of Petrouchka, he (or she -- I
> didn't pay attention) used an A clarinet instead of the one specified by
> Stravinsky because "it sounds better."
>
> Then, as I perceived the ebb and flow of comments, it seemed to me that
> the direction being taken was that this kind of personal agenda (in
> terms of which clarinet was the instrument of choice) was suggesting
> that the matter was not really important to the composer, and once again
> Stravinsky's Petrouchka was used as an example; that is to say, Robert
> Craft's name was invoked and it was suggested that he never argued about
> which clarinet should be used in playing Stravinsky's music. And since
> Craft knew Stravinsky well by virtue of their longtime working
> relationship, the leap was made which allowed one to conclude that
> Stravinsky didn't care either.
>
> Maybe I read it wrong. Maybe I was blinded by the enormity of the
> hubris involved. And maybe the fact that no one came back to question
> the party making that statement caused me to feel depressed.
>
> And yet some contributors to this thread headed towards even further
> extremes. Not only did some agree that it was appropriate to make the
> kind of clarinet substitution arbitrarily, and not only did the composer
> not really care one way or the other, but it was seriously suggested
> that some composers probably didn't know any better. That they called
> for a clarinet of specific pitch was more a function of their ignorance
> about what clarinets can and cannot do.
>
> Er... yeah.
>
> Now I am probably exaggerating the flow of the dialogue because hearing
> it as I heard it, momentarily caused me to lose my reason. This was
> because, (a) the direction of that kind of conversation was enough to
> make any thinking musician crazy, and (b) no one was putting out a hit
> on the individuals offering a patently personal view as if it were a
> universal truth.
>
> I perceived the world of clarinetdom as being in the forefront of
> performing musicians who want to play elegantly (as so many do) but who
> don't give a damn about how their actions affect the orchestral palette
> of sound.
>
> The problem lies in the fact that the central interest is centered
> around the pitch of a note more than in any of its other
> characteristics. So if the music to be played requests certain notes,
> we presume that everything requested by the composer has been satisfied
> so long as those notes are what is heard (and played elegantly, of
> course).
>
> Now, even the most right wing element of the clarinet world would object
> if the great clarinet solo in the overture to Forza del Destino were
> played by the clarinetist on a soprano saxophone, no matter how
> beautifully it were to be executed. "That kind of change," one would
> hear argued, "has no performance authority."
>
> But, trying to examine the question rationally, what really is the
> objection to such a radical change? After all, all of the proper pitches
> were sounded. I have suggested that it was played very effectively.
> What objectively and exactly is wrong with such a substitution?
>
> The superficial answer is that "a clarinet is called for by the
> composer, not a soprano saxophone." But that is only partially the
> nature of the objection. What is wrong is that the character of the
> instrument used changes the orchestral palette of sound.
>
> It doesn't matter that the passage might be easier on a soprano
> saxophone, or that it was beautifully executed, or that Verdi was too
> stupid not to use a soprano saxophone, or even that he would not have
> cared one whit had such a substitution been made. Nor does it matter
> that all the right pitches were heard. It is the character of the sound
> that is objected to.
>
> OK. I'll admit, it's an extreme case. But I was trying to make a
> point.
>
> Suppose instead that a certain solo for B-flat clarinet could be
> executed by playing that solo on a B-flat bass clarinet, but an octave
> higher than written so that not only were the same pitches played, but
> the pitches were heard in the proper register. Could such a situation
> give rise to a disagreement of the same character as that which arose in
> the Verdi/soprano saxophone example?
>
> "The passage is for a soprano clarinet," one might hear. "It was not
> written for a bass clarinet playing an octave higher."
>
> But that is the same superficial argument made against the use of the
> soprano saxophone in the Verdi overture. What is REALLY wrong with this
> kind of substitution is that the sonic character of the music has been
> altered by this kind of behavior, and that such an alteration is not
> tolerable. A bass clarinet playing an octave higher does not sound like
> a clarinet. (Or, one could argue, a soprano clarinet playing an octave
> lower does not sound like a bass clarinet.)
>
> So just how far can this argument about instrumental substitution be
> carried?
>
> I suggest that those who argue that, IN EVERY CASE, the substitution of
> a clarinet in X for a clarinet in Y, arbitrarily, without authority, and
> in violation of an explicit request on the part of a composer, changes
> the orchestral palette of sound to some degree. Some such substitutions
> may be said to be so minor as to affect that change to a non-noticeable
> degree. That's a debatable issue.
>
> Thus substituting a clarinet in A in the Petrushka for the called for
> clarinet in B-flat because "it sounds better" is perceived as tolerable,
> not because it really does sound better (who is the authority on that?),
> but because it is harder to notice such a substitution. The nuance in
> sound character difference between the two instruments is more subtle
> than the proposed substitution of a soprano saxophone for a clarinet in
> the Verdi example.
>
> The fact that the conductor may not hear it, or may not care, are not
> reasons that support the practice. That I steal money from a rich man
> who does not witness the act, nor care since he can afford it, in way
> mitigates for the moral correctness of the act.
>
> Now it may be that some composers (maybe all of them) don't care what
> one does when in the pit, though I doubt that such a statement is really
> defensible. And it may be that some composers (maybe all of them) don't
> understand anything about clarinets, though I doubt that such a
> statement is valid. And it may also be that the impact on the
> orchestral palette of sound of arbitrary substitutions of one clarinet
> for another is impossible to detect, though I can't respond to that
> because I know of no way in which the orchestral palette of sound is
> measured.
>
> But I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that this aspect of
> clarinet playing (i.e., clarinet substitution based on what may or may
> not be good reasons) is a practice that is now out of control and has
> been for some time. It is as if we have license to do whatever we wish,
> to achieve whatever purpose we wish. That purpose may be simply one of
> laziness because we don't carry that many instruments to a job. That
> purpose may be financial because we don't have the money to buy the
> instrument called for. That purpose may be one in which we are convinced
> that we are doing an inherently musical thing. But whatever we do in
> this respect and for whatever reason, I know of no authority that we
> have for doing it beyond what should be our own musical good judgment.
> And I perceive the situation as one in which our good judgment has been
> abandoned far too frequently for arbitrary and occasionally questionable
> reasons.
>
> But whatever the range of reasons for doing it, when it comes to our
> behavior in this arena, there may be insufficient self-constraint and
> even less authoritative constraint on our right and wisdom to do these
> things (i.e., from without, such as the actions of the conductor). And I
> am not sure that this is necessarily a healthy situation.
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
>
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>
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