Klarinet Archive - Posting 000853.txt from 2002/10

From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Beethoven "clarinet" concerto
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 06:19:15 -0500

OK, I promised ages ago I'd write a few serious thoughts on this so here
goes... ;-)

I should perhaps start with a caveat: my listening to Michael Collins'
clarinet verision of the Beethoven violin concerto was in fact the first
time I'd heard this piece of music *in any form*. So it may well be that my
attitude to that version of the piece is shaped at least in part by the fact
that it was my first introduction to a marvellous piece of music.

And just to add to this: I *did* feel, on first listening to the violin
version (Thomas Zehetmair's period instrument version) that it was like a
veil being lifted (a much-overworked metaphor, but appropriate here;-)

But... on re-listening to the clarinet version, I found that I still liked
it and still felt it was a valid performance. And it's very difficult for
me to work out why.

A metaphor that came to mind was this: think of the effect you see sometimes
in films or on TV, where the camera focus suddenly shifts from, say, the
background of a bar to the face of a character, or vice versa. This seems
to describe really how I feel about what's changed in the recomposition of
the Beethoven concerto. The concerto might be described as a huge,
magnificent landscape; the recomposition is like a shift in focus of our
viewpoint, so that perhaps the full grandeur and scale of the landscape is
no longer apparent. But something else has happened: there are lots of
little details here and there which have suddenly come *into* focus.

For example, there are a number of passages - fast, large interval leaps for
example - which are idiomatic for the violin but completely *non*-idiomatic,
and very difficult, for the clarinet; and so a whole sense of danger and
excitement is added to these parts which wasn't there before. One could
argue that this feeling isn't appropriate for these passages but at the very
least it's showing us a new viewpoint on them, which I think is valuable.
Similarly a new phrasing has to be introduced based on breath rather than
bowing. In both cases I think they introduce a new way of looking at the
music which might not have come to mind thinking about it from a purely
violin-based perspective.

Another thing that is immediately obvious is that the clarinet lacks the
effective range used by the violin. Many passages have had to be brought
down an octave, and so Michael Collins has been forced to use sound *colour*
rather than pitch as a way of differentiating many passages. This isn't to
say that violinists don't use colour - they do, beautifully - but here
colour has to count for all, and I don't think this is so much a loss as
rather a fascinating exploration of a very particular side of the piece.

At which point perhaps one could ask, "Yes, an interesting exploration, but
having made that exploration do we need to travel the same route again?"
And I do understand this point of view, and in all honesty I'm not really
sure why I feel that for me travelling the same route is still interesting.
One thing which I should say is that in compositions (rare these days but I
still write music occasionally) I found myself becoming fascinated with odd
"viewpoints" of musical material, the limitations of instruments (and
struggling against those limitations), and the difference between ideals and
reality. For example a few years ago I wrote a 'cello piece that used
complex rhythmic and microtonal notation but which, if *played*, would sound
like someone desperately struggling (and failing) to play an expressive,
romantic piece of music. The effect would (it was never actually played)
have been more theatrical than musical, I suspect, but I don't think that
matters in the long run and I don't really agree with the chopping-up of
"art" into different categories in this manner. At any rate, I suspect it's
the very limitations of the clarinet in performing the Beethoven concerto
that makes it fascinating for me.

-- Joe

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