Klarinet Archive - Posting 000212.txt from 2002/10

From: "Gene Nibbelin" <gnibbelin@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Brahms Clarinet Sonata No. 2
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 23:59:36 -0400

Tony -

Well, you are at it again, aren't you. However, some of the best advice
that I ever received was "DON'T EVER GET IN A SPITTING CONTEST WITH A
SKUNK".

At my age of 74, I can say anything frigging thing I want to. I've earned
the right.

Stick it, Tony!!!

No regards,

Gene Nibbelin

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Pay [mailto:Tony@-----.uk]
Subject: RE: [kl] Brahms Clarinet Sonata No. 2

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002 15:43:07 -0500 , Tom.Henson@-----.com said:

> Thanks Tony for the advice on not trying to copy another person's
> playing vs. what caused them to play that way.
>
> I think this is unconsciously what I meant, but after reading the way
> you have put it, there is indeed a difference between the two.

I wasn't really responding to what you'd said, Tom, but to what other
people had said about how they had 'used' their own favourite
recordings.

> What I am getting from listening to these cd's is the impression of
> tempo that they should be taken at, whether they were following the
> dynamic markings or not, articulation, and so forth. My teacher told
> me that Brahms should be pretty much played exactly as written in
> regards to markings.

I've never really understood why what any composer writes shouldn't be
played according to the markings.

There seems to be a notion abroad that what 'the composer writes' is
only some sort of a 'clue' as to what you should 'really' do; and
that you need to go to some usually American,
legendary/expensive/'Martian' expert to decode the 'real' instruction.

For example, Gene Nibbelin said here that some 'great legend's' changes
to what was written in the clarinet part of the Debussy Rhapsodie 'made
more sense' than Debussy's original score.

How he knew that, I don't know.

And in my view he persists in that sort of silliness in what he says
about the Brahms Sonatas 'according to Harold Wright'.

I'd say, rather, that if you're going to play it, it's between what the
composer wrote and you. All these other guys/gals, and their CDs, are
just a resource. An important resource, but just a resource
nevertheless.

> I also wanted to hear how well the various artists handled the
> intervals around the break and how smooth and unbroken their sound was
> throughout. This to me is what I am trying to achieve for myself. A
> perfect, unbroken phrasing regardless of interval or break.
>
> I think in listening, I am also trying to hear the work in it's
> entirety outside of the performers, so that I may better grasp the
> emotion with which it was written and hopefully to better understand
> the work as a whole. Chances are that I will not be able to perform
> the work in it's entirety, but each movement should still be
> understood in relation to the whole work and not practiced as an
> isolated piece in and of itself.
>
> I think this work is more introspective in mood than an in your face
> Weber Concerto. I just don't hear a lot of young (in clarinet years)
> players lining up to play this. They seem to want to play the flashier
> pieces that have lots of runs and shows off their blazing technique.
> It seems to me that you should almost play this work as if you have
> nothing to prove in performing it. I don't know if that makes any
> sense to anyone else, but it does to me.
>
> My feeling is that technique is very much needed, if not more so in
> Brahms' sonatas, but it should always be in the background and never
> something you hang out on the wash line for the audience to marvel at.

Agreed. That's using what everyone else has done as a resource, and
with great understanding of the issues involved, I'd say.

> Regarding Muhlfeld's "alleged" use of vibrato. I think we must gather
> from reading Colin Lawson's liner notes that he is "assuming" that
> because Muhlfeld was first a violinist, that he must have used vibrato
> since that is an integral part of playing the violin. He even suggests
> that this use of vibrato in his playing style is what enamored Brahms
> to him in the first place. But this is old news, and most of us have
> heard it all before.

Yes.

> Guessing that you have played this piece many times, have you used
> vibrato, and has your interpretation changed over the years as Elise
> Curran remarked in his posting on this thread? I would be curious to
> know.

Given that information about what I've done personally isn't very
interesting for what you're going to do, I can report that I have on
occasion used vibrato -- never much, and mostly not at all.

I always felt, even when I was quite young, that I knew what these
pieces were about. But whether I did or not has to be judged by others.

I've learnt more about them as I've grown older, of course.

For example, is what the piano plays in the last 8 bars of the F minor
Sonata significant?-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

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