Klarinet Archive - Posting 000254.txt from 2007/05

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Kell's Stravinsky
Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 13:41:04 -0400

I'd meant to continue to hold back on the subject of Kell, but a post on the
BBoard motivated me to say something about him in the Stravinsky pieces, so
here's what I wrote there, in case anyone here wants to respond.

Iceland clarinet wrote:

> It...clearly says in my 1993 Chester edition edition by Nicholas Hare "No
> proofs or related correspendence from the composer appear to have survived.
> Thus we have to assume that J.W.C.1151 (Plate number,copy in the British
> Libary) represents Stravinsky's final thoughts, particularly as he was
> apparently happy for the work to be reprinted unaltered for the rest of his
> life." So the are no evidence that state that what is marked in the
> manuscript is wrong or right.

The printed edition J.W.C.1151 (which is the one we all had until Hare's
rather scruffy effort appeared) differs from the manuscript in a very
significant way at the end of the third piece -- it can't have been an error.
I'd have thought that was clear evidence that STRAVINSKY revised the
manuscript to produce J.W.C.1151. Who else would have dared?

Quite apart from that, Stravinsky talked about that final measure, eg to
Rosario Mazzeo, who had a lesson on the piece from the composer. About the
last (throat) Bb, Mazzeo wrote:

"[Stravinsky] recommended holding it until you felt sure that the audience
understood it as the end of the piece at which point you would abruptly
surprise them, and play a very flippant, soft, last Bb, preceded by its grace
note."

> Tony if you say that the Reginald Kell's version is so bad then you should
> also revile Glen Gould's version of Beethoven's Appassionata
> sonata...because he sets bad example to student's by playing the sonata 1/2
> speed slower than the norm.

[I had said that Kell's recording was a bad example to students.]

I don't know Gould's Appassionata recording, but I have to say that Gould's
general approach is always at the service of a vision of the music, quite
unlike Kell's constant application of his irritating mannerisms -- things
like starting passagework slowly and speeding up -- TO the music.

And it doesn't stop at mannerisms. In movement I of the Three Pieces, he
completely ignores the tempo, dynamic and atmosphere markings, and often
changes the articulation. (You could also say that he plays ALL the wrong
notes in both first and second movements, by playing on the wrong clarinet in
movement I AND transposing up an additional semitone, and by playing on the
wrong clarinet in movement II. Apropos choice of instruments, Mazzeo reports
Stravinsky's opinion that "the use of the A and Bb clarinets was
indicated so that the proper character of each piece would best be portrayed,
especially the quietness of the first, and the brilliance of the third
movement."

In movement II Kell adds an extra D after the first three semiquavers of the
second phrase -- an almost unthinkably arrogant attitude to Stravinsky's
carefully notated score -- then, another twiddle of his own in the sextuplet
demisemiquaver, and a wrong note at the last of the septuplets starting on
low F. At the end of the movement, he does an accelerando instead of the
notated ritardando.

But movement III is the most gratuitously perverse. In bar 1 he omits the
gracenote, in bars 2 and 4 adds slurs, in bar 11 gives us B natural instead
of C, in bar 14 adds a slur, changes bar 18 from 2/4 to 9/16, adds a slur in
bar 23, plays A# instead of A in bar 33, does the wrong articulation in bar
41, gives us Eb followed by F instead of F# followed by E natural on the
second beat of bar 54, and plays Eb instead of E natural in bar 60.

In all of that, we have his cutesy self-absorption to contend with.

People sometimes say, all of this isn't important, because his playing is so
INTERESTING, compared to conventional playing. But, take it from me, it's
not difficult to do a passable imitation of Kell's playing in these pieces.
The only reason people like it is because it's DIFFERENT, and the only reason
it's different is that for most of us it's too embarrassing to play that way
-- we'd be too ashamed of ourselves.

And that's why I say it's a bad influence on students -- it's not an example
of 'thinking for yourself' -- it's an example of 'NOT thinking for yourself'.
Tony
--

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

... If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?

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