Klarinet Archive - Posting 001218.txt from 2003/04
From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Gran Partitta
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 08:06:39 -0400
Dan dismisses three arguments for using a contrabassoon in the Gran
Partitta -- and so do I, because I would never use a contrabassoon in
the piece myself.
But...
> The arguments that you will hear to include a contrabassoon are these:
>
> (1) if Mozart had had a contrabassoon, he would have used one
[snip of Dan's dismissal]
> (2) it sounds better with a contrabassoon
[snip of Dan's dismissal]
.....I'd say it's important to realise, and to celebrate even, that we
rightly apply more sophisticated versions of these two arguments at
every moment in our playing.
For example, in this case it's a problem for any string contrabass
player to produce 'what's required' in the 'descending run in the sixth
movement at the conclusion of two solos for the first bassoon' that
Richard Sankovich mentioned. The string instrument can easily sound
muddy and unclear by comparison with the winds. An accurate way of
characterising that problem is to say that a good string contrabass
player will try to sound 'as like a contrabassoon as possible' at that
point, or that...
*the piece wants some of the qualities of a contrabassoon there*, and
the player will try to provide them.
Bassoons again: I recently played a version of Beethoven's Seventh
Symphony for wind band. The slow movement begins with a tutti chord as
in the original, but continues with two bassoons and contra playing the
theme. (Everyone at the concert singled out this scoring as a
particularly happy transcription, by the way.) But every now and then,
three players aren't quite enough, and the unknown transcriber adds the
first clarinet to the ensemble -- in this case, me. I found this really
hard to 'make work'. The added notes are in the low register, including
several low Es, and to match the attack of the bassoons effectively is a
technical challenge. What's true is that...
*the piece wants the qualities of another bassoon at that point*, and I
tried to provide them.
(It might be interesting to ask the members of this list to provide
other examples from their own experience. I'll just say that for me,
playing in a wind quintet often throws up judgements of this nature.
You find you want to say, *the piece needs a second flute* from me here,
or *the piece needs a first oboe* from me here.)
Now, the point is, where do these judgements come from? Well, clearly
from me, in one sense, and my own history of playing music. But also,
clearly from the piece, including its history, and thus also from the
composer, including his or her history...
The attitude towards playing music that makes my moment-by-moment
response subject to all these various considerations, conscious and
subconscious, will never go away, because it lies at the heart of what
we do. My own formulation, "What does the piece want in order to be
fully alive at this point?", operating over several different timescales
simultaneously, is the best I find I can do to encapsulate the attitude.
So I say that the status of the arguments (1) and (2) is that they are
partial and over-the-top expressions of a *correct* attitude to playing
music. The fact that with Dan, I dismiss them as partial and
over-the-top doesn't mean that they are *totally* wrong-headed.
That has the perhaps unfortunate consequence that the decision not to
use a contrabassoon in the Gran Partitta, despite appearances, is not a
simple one, capable of being arrived at from first principles; and that
if someone wanted to use a contrabassoon in the Gran Partitta, then
although I would certainly take the view that the case for not doing so
is overwhelming, I would nevertheless need to argue the details.
Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339
...... So... Is this seat taken?
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