Klarinet Archive - Posting 000551.txt from 2002/09

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Composers' intentions (was: "Clarinet Substitutions")
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 10:52:13 -0400

I can think of the ending of Dvorak's "Water Goblin," where one or the other
of the clarinettists - officially, clar.1 - has to switch to a stone-cold
bass for *the first time in the piece!* in an enormous hurry and then play
a soft final melody in duet with a similarly stone-cold cor anglais.....
No musician of any category knows everything, even about their own patch.

Yours,
Roger S.

In message <OF3594C178.B018D56B-ON85256C3F.004BDA37@-----.org writes:
>
> Mr. Leeson,
> Are you so sure that composers really know what they're doing, all
> the time, with regards to instrumentation and orchestration? I'm currently
> playing yet another typically useless bass clarinet part with a community
> orchestra, this time it's Albert Roussel's 3rd Symphony, and once again,
> the bass clarinet part is completely buried by the rest of the orchestra
> playing fortissimo, or nineteen other instruments doubling the part. I
> have a recording of a fine major symphony orchestra playing this piece, and
> NOWHERE can I hear a single note of bass clarinet (and I have some of the
> most bass-clarinet-sensitive ears around). If the composer was so damned
> smart and sure of what he was doing, why did he write my part so poorly? I
> might not as well be there! And this is one of many similar examples.
> Consequently I'm quite skeptical (like Ed Maurey and others) that the
> composer really, thoughtfullly, deliberately meant "A" vs. "Bb" clarinet
> (or vice versa) in most cases. I suspect that probably the decision was
> arbitrary, or accidental, or done by the copyist or publisher for
> convenience, or just about any reason OTHER than that the composer really
> could hear a difference and intended that the particular clarinet's sound
> be played. Heck, I've been playing clarinets for 30 years and most of the
> time I can't tell if someone's playing an "A" or "Bb" clarinet --- do you
> REALLY think most composers can tell? Maybe Stravinsky was the rare
> exception, who knows?
> David Spiegelthal
> Calverton, VA
>
>
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>
>

--
Private faces in public places
Are wiser and nicer
Than public faces in private places.
---- W. H. Auden

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