Klarinet Archive - Posting 000364.txt from 2003/01

From: MVinquist@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Clarinet Day at Mannes
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 10:54:41 -0500

Mannes sponsored a wonderful day of master classes and performances on
January 5th, featuring Mark Nuccio, Charles Neidich and Kavid Krakauer.
These are my impressions and some of the things I learned.

It's a Buffet world, all R-13s, with one Prestige R-13. No Opus/Concertos,
no Signatures, no Rossis. No custom barrels (even Moennig or Chadash, as far
as I could see). Ligatures were about 50% fabric, mostly Rovner with a few
Vandoren or BG, and 50% metal, mostly plain or Bonade, with one Winslow and
one oddball with a screw-down plate. About 20% used mouthpiece patches.
Only one student used a neck strap. I don't think anyone used a double lip
embouchure.

The master class students ranged in playing level from high intermediate
through young professional. Each had good finger speed and good basic tone,
but each had a long way to go. The differences between them and the coaches
were a mixture of basics and advanced matters:

The common areas needing improvement were:
- embouchure
- voicing of the tone, using the tongue and oral cavity
- tonguing
- finger motion - economical, preparation, movement in advance, legato
- phrasing with the harmony
- knowing what else is going on, not just the solo part
- musical projection

MARK NUCCIO is the assistant principal in the New York Philharmonic. He is
the ideal orchestral player: perfect control, perfect technique, perfect
intonation, excellent musicianship and a warm, pleasant personality. He spoke
about studying with Marcellus, and the perfection in small things that
Marcellus taught. This carried over into his coaching, which was all on
orchestral excerpts.

With each player, he began with the embouchure. He emphasized that it must
be the same all the time. Even the best students had inconsistencies. They
put the reed on the lower lip in many different places, had more or less
mouthpiece in the mouth, held the instrument at varying horizontal and
vertical angles, and, most of all, the strength in the lips wasn't
sufficient. He said that the lips and tongue must be in the same position
for every note, regardless of what else you're doing. You have to be like a
jazz drummer, who lays down a rock-solid beat on the bass drum with one foot,
while the other foot is playing with the cymbal and the two hands are doing
two different things. The embouchure is like the bass drum - completely
steady.

He also worked with each student on controlling the voicing of the tone. The
position of the tongue and the oral cavity have a great effect on tone, and
it's important to become aware of and control what you do. He gave excellent
demonstrations of this and got the students to do some of it, and, at least
become aware of it.

BEETHOVEN 6TH

He began work on the Beethoven 6th by asking for a solo that's seldom on
auditions: the short first movement solo with the two descending arpeggios.
Although the student was quite a good player, he had great difficulty making
each change perfectly in this technically simple passage. Nuccio
demonstrated the importance of finger coordination and preparing the air and
embouchure for each entrance and each interval. What makes this solo right
is doing the basics perfectly - getting the air and embouchure set absolutely
right and making the fingerwork perfectly smooth.

In the "standard audition" solo in the first movement, the opening is piano.
There's an important contrast between loud and soft. The hardest part is
making sure the third line B speaks (at the beginning of each ascending
arpeggio near the end of the solo), since there's a big leap down to it each
time. Once again, the key is keeping your embouchure and air pressure steady.

The second movement sequence is not several separate solos, but a single
solo. This is impossible to learn using an excerpt book, or even the
complete 1st clarinet part. You have to get the full score, to see how you
and the strings trade phrases back and forth, and to know everything else
that's going on.

The passage is an ascending sequence, and the phrases need to have that
shape. However, phrase 2 is an answer to phrase 1 and must therefore be
softer. That is, phrase #1 is mp, #2 is p, #3 is mf, and #4 is f. Each
phrase ends with an appoggiatura and downward resolution. Remember your
basic harmony. Play the non-harmonic appoggiaturas strong, relaxing off to
each resolution. The staccato notes at the end must be like blowing the
seeds off a dandelion -- a light puff, with each note played and allowed to
expand and vanish like the cloud of dandelion seeds. Finally, you can't make
too much of the final trill. Don't make it a blur -- this is a slow
movement. Trill. at a moderate speed and hand off the phrase to the next
player with the little ornament at the end.

DIGRESSION ON TRILLS

>From a master class many years ago, I can't remember with whom.

The important note in a trill is the note you're trilling from -- the lower
one.

On a string instrument, the lower note sounds whenever the trilling finger is
not on the string. The upper note sounds only when the finger is down, and
immediately goes back to the lower note while the finger is making the rest
of its motion.

On a wind instrument, it's the opposite. The lower note plays, then the
finger rises, and all the time the finger is moving up and back down, the
upper note is sounding. This unbalances the trill, giving too much of the
upper note. Wind players must learn to keep the finger down most of the time
during a trill.

This is something you hear all the time once it's called to your attention.
I heard it from every student. Although none of the coaches mentioned it,
their trills were perfectly balanced.

MENDELSSOHN MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

When you go into an audition, make sure your reed plays well at p and pp.
Most people give a couple of loud blasts but don't check the pp response and
thus mess up these little solos, which have to be extra light.

Everyone struggles with middle B in the first pattern (G#, G#, G#, B, A),
since you're going from one register to another. The solution is to play the
B using the top two trill keys. You have plenty of time to move your right
index finger up, and the note is unaccented, so the lack of resonance doesn't
matter. Back off a little on the volume, to make the short-tube quality less
noticeable, and, anyway, the color matches the G# and the A better than a
long-tube B will. Remember that even if the audition isn't behind a screen,
few of the audition committee members will be clarinetists. All they're
listening for is clean technique and even tone color.

CHARLES NEIDICH is principal in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and a
well-known performer on modern and early clarinet. He is also a superior
pianist and constantly demonstrated things at the piano, showing the student
how the clarinet and piano parts worked together.

Like Nuccio, Neidich worked hard on each player's embouchure. He also
concentrated on posture. A very advanced student kept ducking her head,
which choked off the air, Neidich constantly lifted the clarinet barrel,
which produced a remarkable improvement in her tone.

I had not heard his description of the correct way to make an embouchure
before, but it seemed intuitively right. The embouchure begins at the point
of the jaw, beneath the ear. Think of a line of force beginning there and
going along your jaw line to the point of your chin. Remember Leon
Russianoff's advice that the embouchure is like the parts of a drum. The
area between the lip and the point of the chin is like the drum head. The
teeth are like the rim. The corners of the mouth control the tension of the
drum head.

DEBUSSY PREMIERE RHAPSODY

The PR was published as a solo with piano for the Paris Conservatoire annual
competition. However, Debussy's papers show that he intended the orchestral
accompaniment from the beginning.

The PR was finished and engraved in a great rush, and Durand, the publisher,
made many mistakes in the solo and piano parts. It's essential to consult
the orchestral score, which Debussy checked very carefully. Neidich has a
photocopy of Debussy's manuscript. The most audible (and controversial)
change is the final flourish, where it's beyond doubt that the low note
should be D#, not D. (Marcellus said the same thing in a master class
several years ago.)

Debussy was meticulous with his markings. You must follow them exactly, for
example starting and ending crescendos just where they're marked.

Debussy made a revolution in harmony. Prior to him, harmonic tension was
produced by a sequence of chords (e.g., I-IV-V7-I). Debussy moved from
standard to modal harmony. He produced harmonic tension and relaxation by
making a "carpet" of tonality, moving away (to dissonance) and returning. In
the PR, listen carefully to the piano part, where this happens constantly.
You need to find these points and shape your phrases around them, "pressing"
on the dissonance and relaxing back into the consonance, as you would with an
appoggiatura or other non-harmonic note and its resolution.

Debussy also revolutionized phrase structure. His phrases build to the last
note, and crescendo throughout. The next phrase pulls back and starts to
build again. Listen to La Mer, where this happens constantly. Also, he uses
the common device of stating a short phrase (say, two measures), repeating it
(two more measures), and then starting with the same pattern but expanding it
to twice the length (four measures). This happens in the second set of
phrases in the PR, with the long group moving at half speed.

The pianist is the soloist at the opening of the PR. Be sure to let the
pianist finish the opening phrase. In fact, your opening phrase is a pickup
to the next piano phrase. Therefore, don't make a big crescendo. You play
the basic motive and then hand the phrase back to the pianist.

It's essential to know what's happening in the piano part. The piano is an
equal, and often more-than-equal, partner. The revolutionary harmonic and
phrase structure are unfamiliar enough, even today, that you have to be
hyper-aware of them and demonstrate them to the audience. Although the
Mannes faculty member accompanist was excellent, the change when Neidich sat
down at the piano was magical. He demonstrated the harmonic devices, singing
the solo part and then having the student play with him. In particular, he
showed where Debussy changed the harmony in repeated phrases, which requires
the soloist to play differently.

TECHNICAL DIGRESSION: The clarinet overtone series and voicing.

As we all know, the clarinet overblows on odd-numbered partials. Many
players get a hesitation when moving from the chalumeau/fundamental/1st
partial to the clarion/3rd partial (or from the 3rd to the 5th/altissimo).
In the Debussy, for example, the student, who was an excellent player, had a
noticeable "click" moving from Bb to C in his opening phrase. Charles
Neidich broke away from the Debussy to do a fascinating and important
presentation on voicing.

Finger the first space F, and go to the corresponding clarion C (on the
second ledger line) without using the register key. This is not terribly
difficult and is done by changing the space inside your mouth and moving your
lower lip toward the shoulder of the reed, to find the spot that forces the
reed to vibrate at the 3rd partial. Then play a slow descending scale down
to middle B. The voicing and lip position become more critical as you go
lower, and you probably won't get beyond F on the first attempt. With
practice, you will be able to reach the B, as Neidich demonstrated.

This has great practical importance. The only way to make sure of a seamless
transition from Bb to C in the Debussy is to learn to play the C without the
register key, and then, in actual performance, set your mouth and lip for the
3rd partial.

Use the same method in the third movement of the Saint-Saens Sonata, where,
in the second section, you must move seamlessly back and forth across the
clarion/altissimo break.

INTONATION AND VOLUME

Neidich also said that the clarinet does *not* naturally play sharp at ppp
and flat at fff. It seems to do so because players make an embouchure
mistake, relaxing to get more volume and squeezing to get softer, and also by
changing the oral cavity. This is difficult to describe in words, but was
very easy to hear.

An exercise to get out of this habit is to play G on top of the staff at mf
and bend it down 1/4 step. Hold your embouchure and raise the pitch back up
entirely by raising the back of your tongue into a "hee" vowel. (Actually,
it's a combination of "hee" and "yeah!!")

When you can do this, then learn to drop your jaw as far as possible, holding
the pitch up with the tongue/oral cavity position.

Then, start with your regular embouchure, drop your jaw a little (holding the
pitch with the hee/yeah vowel) and then bring your jaw back up for "best
tone."

FRANCAIX THEME AND VARIATIONS

This is a very fine piece, and a finger-buster. The interpretive problem, as
Neidich pointed out, is that there is no identifiable "theme" to make
variations on. The key is in the dedication, which is to Francix's nephew
Olivier. The piece is held together, not by a theme, but by a three-note
pattern, low, high, middle, corresponding to the syllables of the name
Olivier (oh-liv-ier).

DAVID KRAKAUER is a well-known teacher and performer in classical and Klezmer
music. He didn't play at all, and his coaching, while sometimes technical,
was mostly about finding the mood of a piece and putting it over to the
audience. His energy was overwhelming and exhausting.

He talked at length about Leon Russianoff's ideas on finger motion, some of
which came from Bonade. First, you need to perfect slow, controlled finger
motion for legato passages, so that there's no "thump" and yet no smear.
Second, in tongued passages, you need to learn to finger the note before you
play it. You learn this by starting dead slow, playing the first note,
stopping it, moving your fingers and playing the next note. At fast tempos,
you don't notice you're doing it, but the preparation makes the passage clean.

SAINT-SAENS SONATA

A student played the first movement, with little expression. He had the
music stand as high as possible, in front of his face. Krakauer pushed it
down and told him to play the opening from memory, even if he made a mistake.
This made a noticeable improvement. The stand was no longer blocking the
sound, and the barrier from the audience was removed.

Krakauer asked him what he thought about when he played the opening. The
student said he didn't know. Krakauer asked him to think of something, and
the student said a lullaby. "Fine then, play it like a lullaby, instead of
just notes." The student did, sounding better. Krakauer went five rows into
the audience and said "Play it to me out here." The student did, this time
with much more expression.

Krakauer then took the student's idea and improvised on it. "The first
part's a lullaby. OK. And maybe the next section is a dream, or even a
nightmare. Play it to me that way." He went two rows deeper into the
audience, constantly asking for more expression and projection. The student
gradually got over his shyness and really played out.

Another student played the third movement, quite well, I thought. With this
more advanced player, Krakauer worked on legato finger movement and correct
intonation in the loud chalumeau first section and the soft clarion second
section. With this student also, he moved the stand down and out of the way,
went deep into the audience and called for musical personality to come out
over the end of the stage, even while playing soft.

EGON WELLESZ SOLO PIECE

Although this has been recorded a couple of times, Krakauer was unfamiliar
with it. He didn't like it much, but said that you can't always like what's
given to you, and part of being a professional is to make even a mediocre
piece effective. He worked on several phrases with the student, singing them
and having the student sing them. Although the piece was atonal, he found
traditional phrase shapes, which he had the student work on to "make music."

WEBER, CONCERTO # 1

The student was a talented intermediate high school player, who played the
notes but was inconsistent. Krakauer worked on smoothing out some technical
passages and, as with the other students, on music projection to the audience.

SOME FINGERINGS

High G (4th ledger line): Thumb/Register key, left index finger, right ring
finger on the sliver key, right little finger on the Ab/Eb key.

High Ab (above 4th ledger line): T/R, right index finger, right little finger
on the Ab/Eb key.

C#/D# trill (2nd ledger line above the staff): standard C# fingering, trill
with throat Ab key.

Clarion F# using the right index finger and the sliver key: Several students
laid the right ring finger across the sliver key in the same position as they
would to cover the finger hole. This shaded the finger holes above and
below, making the note quite flat. From master classes with Gino Cioffi and
Tom Ridenour, be sure to press the sliver key as close as possible to the
vertical rod (the one that hold the finger rings), to avoid flatness.

EVENING RECITAL

MARK NUCCIO played Tango Etude Number 6 by Astor Piazzola. This is an
excellent piece, quite far from anything that could be danced to. His
control and technical finish were impeccable, and he brought off a difficult
number very effectively.

He next played Estudio Melodica, Op. 33 by Miguel Yuste. I was completely
unfamiliar with this, and expected little given the slightly atonal opening.
However, Nuccio quickly brought out the Spanish figuration, and the
performance was a triumph. This is excellent music, with plenty of brilliant
technical display, wonderfully played.

Hommage a R. Strauss, by Bela Kovacs, is a potpourri of clarinet solos from
the music of Richard Strauss, written by Kovacs, who is one of the great
clarinet virtuosos. Nuccio showed his orchestral clarinetist solo abilities,
bring it off brilliantly.

By the way, he uses a neck strap. Students on the Clarinet board say from
time to time that their band directors won't allow neck straps because it
looks "unprofessional." The answer is that if the associate principal in the
New York Philharmonic uses one, it's highly professional.

CHARLES NEIDICH played Mendelssohn's Sonata for Violin. His technique is
astounding, and I think he simply transposed it. He took the finale, allegro
vivace, at a tempo I though was alegrissimoso prestissimoso molto furioso e
con fuoco conflagrissimo, double and triple tonguing throughout.

He then played a piece of his own, In Memoriam/Spirals, written on the death
of his father (a well-known clarinetist). He said he had intended that it be
played only at his father's memorial service, but he has decided to perform
it publicly, though he doesn't do so often. The piece is highly emotional,
in an atonal idiom with many advanced techniques (multiphonics, key clicks,
subtones), and Neidich, and the audience, finished it in tears.

Neidich is well known for transcriptions of violin pyrotechnics, and he ended
by playing two movements from Sarasate's Zapateado: Playera and
Ziguenerweisen. These pieces are ferociously difficult for violin, full of
extreme high notes (I think I heard G# above double high C), harmonics,
left-hand pizzicatos and general mishegoss. For clarinet they are beyond
belief. Neidich brought them off impressively. Like other virtuosos, he
went for the maximum, even at the risk of dropped notes, and he dropped his
share. His reed gave out, and he had to change, but an audience of
clarinetists readily forgave him.

DAVID KRAKAUER played the solo movement "Abyss of the Birds" from Messaien's
Quartet for the End of Time. This is a great virtuoso tour de force, and he
brought it off brilliantly. There's nothing in the literature more difficult
than bringing off the extreme crescendos, alternating with tiny, impossibly
quick bird calls. A wonderful performance.

To conclude, he brought out two members of his group on accordion and string
bass and played Klezmer. Here, his intensity and musical projection reached
a climax. In the second row, where I sat, I had to stick my fingers in my
ears from time to time.

The concert ended a memorable day, where everybody had fun and everybody
learned a lot. I certainly did.

Best regards.

Ken Shaw

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