Klarinet Archive - Posting 000407.txt from 2004/08

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] K. 581 performance practice
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:05:22 -0400

On 13 Aug, Andy Raibeck <klari_1@-----.com> wrote:

> My quintet group is preparing the Mozart clarinet quintet for an upcoming
> performance, and one of the areas of controversy I am dealing with is
> whether to repeat or not repeat.
>
> A couple of members of the group feel that the piece is too long, and wish
> to eliminate some of the repeats:
>
> - Don't repeat the first section of the first movement. This is the section
> from the beginning through 15 measures after letter C (I don't know how
> consistent rehearsal letters are between editions, but I am using the
> Schirmer edition).

My own feeling is that you should do both this repeat and the one from the
end of the movement to the middle double bar, which you describe in what
follows:

> (Loosely related question: there is a left repeat sign immedately following
> the repeated first section, starting at 16 measures after letter C; but
> there is no matching right repeat sign. I imagine that this means you play
> to the end, then repeat, though I've never heard a performance that does
> this. Is this a repeat that, by some common convention, is rarely if ever
> played?)

I seem to remember that we do that on the AAM chamber ensemble recording.

I have to say that I argue for that on the basis that it changes the
relationship between the first and the second movment lengths advantageously.
I do play some different notes on this second repeat, but that's not my
primary reason. It can sometimes be true that a long piece seems shorter if
it's better balanced -- even sometimes if it's played more expansively.

> - (Not a repeat issue) Eliminate the first two thirds of the second
> movement, and start from the point where the opening melody is restated
> (letter D). This I've refused to do; we are playing the whole movement.

Clearly you are right, and they are wrong.

> - Eliminate all repeats in the third movement. Thus far we've compromised,
> and are currently playing all repeats with the following exceptions: The
> two repeated sections that comprise Trio I, and the second repeated section
> in Trio II (from letter C through the end of the trio, before the da capo).

I don't think you should do this. We don't know whether the 'da capo senza
repliche' is Mozart's (meaning that you don't do the repeats in the Minuet
when you return to it), so that's up to you.

> - Eliminate all repeats in the fourth movement. For now, though, we are
> playing all repeats.

And in my view, you should continue to play all repeats, for the reason that
you can embellish or otherwise alter each repetition -- and that would have
been expected. I think Dan Leeson has said something similar.

But, I probably have a slightly different stance on embellishment than
Dan's. The reason is that I recognise that, even though it's very often
required that repetition be varied to some extent, it's possible to damage
the music more by inappropriate embellishment than it is to damage it by
other sorts of variation on repetition.

Embellishment, like other variation, needs to be motivated by an internally
felt need, growing from a necessarily plausible approach to the repeated
passage. It's not just that you 'show off'. True, showing off is sometimes
required in music; but very often it's not, particularly in pieces like the
Mozart quintet.

You need rather to generate something like the impression that the music
wants to 'flower' when it comes back -- or sometimes 'to be caressed more
intimately' when it comes back -- or sometimes 'to be explored more fully'
when it comes back. Each of these stances will require a different sort of
embellishment; and if you're not up to providing the notes that constitute
such embellishment, you may be better off with just the change of atmosphere,
plus minor decoration.

I refuse to believe that Mozart would have preferred a not particularly
inspired performer to provide extensive bad embellishment rather than to
content themselves with minor decoration.

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

... In nuclear warfare all men are cremated equal.

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