Klarinet Archive - Posting 000145.txt from 2007/03

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Stravinsky's "Three Pieces" (was: [kl] Kell)
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:49:30 -0500

On 8 Mar, feanor33@-----.net wrote:

> In the middle portion of the second movement, you have a low E 1/8note
> followed by a D# 1/16note and a 1/16note rest(ignoring the non-rhythmically
> valued grace note). If you look at the top of the movement he states very
> clearly that an eighth note is worth THREE sixteenth notes. That means the
> low E is worth THREE sixteenths, followed by one Sixteenth (D#) and a
> Sixteenth note rest - making FIVE sixteenth notes. This means that the
> figure is in 5/16, NOT 2/4 as is often played. The lopsided nature of this
> interpretation is sure interesting.

Well, I think 'interesting' is a strange word to choose. It's musically
bizarre, I'd say, and destroys what I think of as a wonderful idea.

Anyhow the argument isn't sustainable. There are three metrical indications
at the beginning, which read, notated isolated eighth note equals notated
isolated eighth note, notated isolated sixteenth note equals notated isolated
sixteenth note, and three notated BEAMED-TOGETHER sixteenth notes equals
notated eighth note equals 168.

I would say that this final metrical indication, "three notated
beamed-together sixteenth notes equals notated eighth note equals 168" cannot
be translated as "an eighth note is equal to three sixteenth notes OF
WHATEVER SORT." The direction of the reading is surely significant. So in
the opposite direction the standard convention applies, namely "an eighth
note is equal in length to two isolated sixteenth notes, or one pair of
beamed-together sixteenth notes."

Look at them again, to convince yourself that there is no inconsistency:

"three notated beamed-together sixteenth notes equals notated eighth note"

"an eighth note is equal in length to two isolated sixteenth notes, or one
pair of beamed-together sixteenth notes."

This interpretation is supported by the fact that when Stravinsky writes a
pair of beamed-together sixteenth notes, each of which he wants to have equal
in length to a 'triplet' sixteenth, contra convention, he needs add the
standard instruction for achieving this, namely, 'notated sixteenth note
equals notated sixteenth note' above the change of beaming (in line 1).
Otherwise he would get the two sixteenths taking the time of an eighth.

AND, there is a very clear musical reason why he doesn't want to get that.
He wants to have two different ways of structuring (by beaming) the
note-sequence that constitutes the third phrase in the piece. (The second,
different beaming of this sequence occurs from the fifth note of the second
phrase in line 2 of the 1920/1990 Chester edition.)

I would say that all this is obvious to a musically sensitive player, and
amounts to nothing more than an appreciation of the unwillingness of the
composer to involve himself in the complications of writing triplets. That
it was not obvious to Stanley Hasty I find surprising -- but then I know
nothing about him apart from his legendary status.

Tony
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