Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 2005/11

From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: [kl] Outdated conventio
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:33:09 -0500

or3mondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya) wrote:

<<
Dan wrote:

> outdated conventions

This raises the question of whether a modern musician is (or is not)
best served by seeing a modern 'translation' of earlier music?
>>

Dear Mr Montoya;

what do you call "a modern 'translation' of earlier music"? The Tom Parker
version of Mozart's clarinet concerto? I think it is horrible. The Schönberg
versions of classical pieces? they have a great quality, but were dictated
by necessity, and anyhow do not violate the music, whereas TP does.

But this also raises a lot of questions, that have been discussed on this
list before. For instance:

Schubert wrote his symphonies with clarinets for clarinet in C. Can you play
it on B-flat instruments? What reminds me not only of Bach's habit to
re-instrumentate many of his works, but also of the famous story of Joseph
Hórak, that Mr Hórak told again on the WBBC in Rotterdam October 23:

He was warming up when a stranger entered. This stranger asked him to play
the Hindemith bassoon sonata on his claribass, whereupon Mr Hórak answered
he thought Hindemith wouldn't be pleased if he did so. Then the stranger
answered: "But i AM Paul Hindemith"!

My pupils om clarinet or saxophone will in the first year have to play for
instance music by Tielman Susato, a Dutch (no, not a Flemish) composer in
the first half of the 17th century. At that time the clarinet was not even
imvented, not to speak of the sax ... !

Rien

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