Klarinet Archive - Posting 000216.txt from 2007/03

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Berio multiphonic fingerings
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:19:02 -0400

On 15 Mar, Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.org> wrote:

> While Berio lived in Boston for two years, I taught his son clarinet...

Interesting. Talia involved me in this too from time to time, in particular
on the occasion I visited Berio in Radicondoli to discuss the Sequenza.

Since it was such a short visit, I just played duets with him (Danny, was
it?) and made a few suggestions. But also, I had with me, and demonstrated
to him, the instrument on which I normally play the Mozart concerto with
modern orchestras. (That instrument is an extension to low C by Ted Planas
of a c1850 instrument by Doelling of Potsdam at A=440, with some keys taken
OFF to make it closer to a Mozart instrument. There's a photo of it in
Brymer's book.)

After dinner, I suggested Danny might like to have a go on this instrument in
private -- it was still in the guest bedroom where I'd left it. So he
disappeared for a few minutes, Talia meanwhile commending me for being so
'trusting'. But when Danny returned, Luciano insisted that he bring the
instrument down and play 'what he had learned' on it. There was quite a row
as Danny refused, and Luciano insisted -- but Danny had his way. I seem to
remember that Luciano got a few notes out of it in the end.

> Regarding the passage in the Sequenza [Berio] told me the solution he like
> best with modern clarinets was to play that section up a half-step
> starting from the mf D-natural after letter J up until letter L.
>
> Then the two multiphonics can be played nicely as follows:
>
> A+B G#+B
>
> TO TO
> A G#
> o o
> * *
> * *
> - -
> * *
> * *
> * *
> E/B E/B
>
> The A+B multiphonic is very sensitive and must be balanced on the
> edge between the A and B (it wants to go either way). The G#+B
> requires much more air than the A+B.

So, this is revelatory to me. Such a solution would of course never occur to
a player, who would think that such wholesale changes of pitch would be
unacceptable to a composer for structural reasons. But apparently not in
this case.

To what extent did Berio disseminate this opinion? He was notoriously
unreliable in such matters -- I mentioned this on the Bulletin Board at:

http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=185092&t=184698&v=t

But it seems a shame that more people don't know about it, if it's true.

Tony
--

_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339
mobile +44(0)7790 532980 tony.p@-----.org

------------------------------------------------------------------