Klarinet Archive - Posting 000399.txt from 2004/10

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 09:41:02 -0400

On 15 Oct, Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com> wrote:

> Honor groups are competitive competitions to place the "top" students in a
> once a year ensemble conducted by a well known conductor. They range from
> county (in some states referred to as region), to country, to (I imagine)
> world.

[snip]

> The judging tends to be "did they play all the notes" as opposed to any
> thought of music.

How do you know this? I'd tend to think that it was only the 'worst' judging
that was of that sort, if indeed such judging existed. Not everyone is as
stupid as you like to think.

> The Copland was just an over the top manifestation of this philosophy (I
> really could imagine the judge sitting there counting high As hit and
> missed).

Well, they might not have been doing that, I think you'll agree. Perhaps you
just have an overactive imagination;-)

> I don't expect Copland will be used again anytime soon (they have somewhat
> of a rotation set of pieces.. Weber, Brahms, Mozart being popular). There
> were a lot of complaints when Copland was the required piece, it is
> theorized that many of the best young students realized the Copland was
> just too hard for them at their stage of playing ability and chose not to
> audition.

Of course, to play *anything* really well is hard. Though a really gifted
child may stun even the most hard-boiled jury in Mozart, my own view is that,
because what is required of a performer to play Mozart well divides even the
most able musicians, you're better off setting a piece that at least asks
explicitly in the notation what is required of the performer.

Though doing that, the Copland cadenza has the disadvantage that there are
several recordings that, self-centredly in my opinion, piss about
unnecessarily with what is written, and so confuse a young performer as to
what may be required in an audition. If that were not the case, one could at
least say, hey, you don't play the accents differently from the other notes,
or make them make sense in context; you don't do the dynamics; you don't obey
the tempo indications; etc etc.

However, I wouldn't say that it is really very technically demanding.

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

... Daddy, what does FORMATTING DRIVE C: mean?

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