Klarinet Archive - Posting 000005.txt from 2007/06

From: "Ken Lefferts" <kenlefferts@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 1 Jun 2007 21:01:01 -0000 Issue 7298
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:27:51 -0400

Mark, I need to get the Lelia Loban letters about Kell parts 1 and 2
kenlefferts@-----. Can you help me?

On 1 Jun 2007 21:01:01 -0000, klarinet-digest-help@-----.org
<klarinet-digest-help@-----.org> wrote:
> klarinet Digest 1 Jun 2007 21:01:01 -0000 Issue 7298
>
> Topics (messages 90921 through 90924):
>
> R. Kell, Part 7: Beethoven Trio No. 4, Op. 11
> 90921 by: Lelia Loban
>
> Re: Kell's Stravinsky
> 90922 by: Joseph Wakeling
> 90923 by: Joseph Wakeling
>
> Reginald Kell: Part 8
> 90924 by: Lelia Loban
>
> Administrivia:
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:17:28 -0400
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
> Subject: [kl] R. Kell, Part 7: Beethoven Trio No. 4, Op. 11
> Message-ID: <410-22007651131728356@-----.net>
>
> Reginald Kell: Part 7.1
> in the 6-disk Decca set, Beethoven Trio No. 4, Op. 11
>
> In response to my query, a private correspondent has supplied the
> information that Joseph Adamowski edited the Schirmer edition, which I have
> not seen. The correspondent, who plays professionally, replaced that
> edition with the Henle edition. Thanks!
>
> Lelia Loban
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:10:22 +0100
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
> Subject: Re: [kl] Kell's Stravinsky
> Message-ID: <466028CE.3030808@-----.net>
>
> Tony Pay wrote:
> > On 27 May, mikeraz@-----.com (Michael Rasmussen) wrote:
> >
> >> For another instance of different, is it better or worse, see this recent
> >> post by Sherman Friedland:
> >> http://clarinet.cc/archives/2007/05/gerry_mulligan.html
> >
> > I looked at this post -- please, all of you, look at it -- and would be
> > interested to know how you think it's relevant.
>
> OK, here goes. :-)
>
> > Is it that you want to say, we should consider ANY way of playing
> something
> > acceptable?
>
> I'd like to think we can _consider_ it, for sure. Whether we conclude
> that it's acceptable is another matter, but there's a lot to be learned
> from people who don't play things "properly" for whatever reason.
>
> Reading that article makes me really want to hear what Gerry Mulligan
> was doing. Maybe it wasn't right for Bach (say) but the effect might be
> brilliant for a new piece of work which isn't Bach _or_ jazz.
>
> It makes me think of a conversation with two friends, one a composer for
> dance, one a professional dancer, about ballet classes the second was
> giving to adult learners. There was much funny description of the
> students, such as the old lady who captured the "ballerina" pulled-back
> facial expression perfectly but couldn't do anything right with her
> body, or the man with funny "jelly legs". And as my friend said---"It's
> _amazing_, I'd love to use those moves in a piece, you'd never come up
> with them if you were a trained dancer."
>
> > Or is it that, if people think you're a great player in a particular
> field,
> > whatever you do outside that field is justifiable to some degree BECAUSE
> > you're thought to be a great player in the field?
>
> I think that there are certain skills which you develop, in the process
> of becoming great (or even just good) at something in one area which
> stand you in good stead for doing good things in just about any other
> area. A good jazz player would probably do something more alive and
> interesting with Bach than a mediocre classically trained player, even
> though the latter might be closer to accepted performance practice.
>
> For example one of the things that marks a good player is that they have
> some internal sense of the "life" of the music, whereas mediocre players
> tend to follow "the rules" without understanding why they are there.
>
> On the other hand one of the problems with not working in a field is
> that your sense of the "life" will not be the same. It's interesting to
> observe the differences if you ask either jazz or classical musicians to
> improvise. Jazz musicians will tend to improvise in a harmonic/melodic
> sense (if you're unlucky they will drop into some lowest common
> denominator like the blues). Classical musicians will tend to produce
> improvisations based on texture and sound colour, because when playing
> music where the notes are given, those are the things you have to focus
> on to bring those notes to life, so that's both where they feel
> comfortable and where they have a sense of quality to follow.
>
> .... so it may be difficult for a jazz player to really bring out to the
> deepest degree the internal sense and structure of Bach, which is a
> unique and very distinct form of musical life.
>
> (But they ma. I can imagine that if he'd voiced his concern a bit
> differently the conversation would have been much more productive.y
> still do something very worthwhile. McCartney's song "Blackbird", for
> example, comes from a Bach guitar piece:-)
>
> > Or is it that we should have more respect for the great jazz musicians
> that
> > we meet in music stores, however rude they may be to us? Or is it that we
> > should have respect for the great jazz musicians that we meet in music
> stores
> > that AREN'T rude to us, and have more respect for them than those that ARE
> > rude to us?
>
> Ahh, well. ;-)
>
> Let's put it this way, when egos enter the conversation it's _always_
> going to go downhill no matter what the musical quality.
>
> I rather feel for the young Sherman who was obviously quite intrigued
> about this alternative way of playing and didn't deserve to be jumped on
> like that. Mind you, from the description he gives, Mulligan was
> probably at the time too young to know better, too.
>
> -- Joe
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:22:30 +0100
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
> Subject: Re: [kl] Kell's Stravinsky
> Message-ID: <46602BA6.4030308@-----.net>
>
> I wrote:
> > (But they ma. I can imagine that if he'd voiced his concern a bit
> > differently the conversation would have been much more productive.y
> > still do something very worthwhile. McCartney's song "Blackbird", for
> > example, comes from a Bach guitar piece:-)
>
> Ahhh, good old cut-and-paste going where you don't expect it.
>
> "But they may still do something very worthwhile. McCartney's song
> "Blackbird", for example, comes from a Bach guitar piece."
>
> Ignore the crap about voicing concerns differently, I thought that let
> Gerry Mulligan off the hook a bit too lightly. ;-)
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 15:07:32 -0400
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
> Subject: Reginald Kell: Part 8
> Message-ID: <410-220076511973244@-----.net>
>
> Reginald Kell, Part 8: Robert Schumann, Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73
> No. I: Zart und mit Ausdruck (tender and with expression)
> No. II: Lebhaft, leicht (lively, light) / Coda, Nach und nach ruhiger (more
> and more tranquilly)
> No. III: Rasch und mit Feuer (brisk and with fire) / Coda, Schneller
> (faster)
>
> Schumann wrote Op. 73 in 1849, during a prolific period before the uprising
> in Dresden that sent him scurrying to safer ground with his wife. I'm
> comparing the performance with the Peters Edition (Nr. 2366), "Revised by
> Issay Barmas," original copyright 1922, renewed 1950. I've never seen the
> manuscript or the first edition. I'm not sure what "revised by" means
> (always ominous coming from an early 20th century editor); but maybe it
> just means that the Barmas edition includes the parts for modern clarinet
> in A and modern clarinet in Bb (instead of the earlier, German clarinet for
> which Schumann wrote). Barmas indicates that he prefers clarinet in A:
> The cover says, "Klarinette in A (oder B) und Klavier" and inside, the
> ossia on the piano score is for clarinet in A only.
>
> In a 2006 posting, Ken Shaw writes,
> >>I listened to the Kell Decca recording last night.
> >>On CD rather than my old LP, it was clear that he
> >>played #1 on the Bb and #3 on the A. I think that
> >>he also played #2 on the A clarinet.
> http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2006/03/000003.txt
>
> That post is well worth a look, because Ken aptly analyses the advantages
> and disadvantages of each choice. Ken, I agree about Kell playing the
> first movement on Bb clarinet (the telltale is at I- 56); I honestly can't
> tell in the second movement (every time he lands on the break, he swallows
> the note!); but in the third movement, I think he's on Bb clarinet, and
> therefore I think he's probably playing the whole thing on Bb (since he
> doesn't change clarinets when he *should* change clarinets in the
> Stravinsky). The telltale for me that this is not clarinet in A in No. III
> is the tone quality of the long, held accidental note tied across bars
> III-38-39-40. Kell's awfully good at minimizing any difference in tone
> quality as he crosses the break, but I think I hear a difference in the a#
> it would be here if he's on a Bb clarinet and the b natural it would be on
> clarinet in A. That note has a tiny bit of fur on it, compared to his
> b-natural. It's hard to hide on a note that long.
>
> So I'm going to say that, in this 1953 recording (from Decca LP DL 9744),
> with pianist Joel Rosen, Kell plays clarinet in Bb for all three
> movements--and that I'd rather hear it on clarinet in A if it would mean a
> mellower tone quality (although I think his tone is always a choice, not an
> accident). Kell and Rosen take all the repeats this time. For my taste,
> Rosen stays too far in the background, as a mere accompanist. I think the
> clarinet belongs up front in these pieces, yes, but not this far up front.
>
> Kell and Rosen use a lot of rubato, appropriate for this Romantic-era
> composer. Kell chooses his crooning, speechlike phrasing here much more
> than he does in the works by Mozart and Beethoven, but it doesn't bother me
> in the Schumann (as it does in the misbegotten Handel transcriptions).
> That's because all three of these Schumann pieces, despite their brevity,
> have a curiously meandering, conversational quality, especially No. I,
> which seems to begin in the middle (I'm writing about Schumann here, not
> this interpretation). The construction isn't loose at all, on paper, but
> for the listener, the three pieces (really three movements of one piece:
> they're all based on the same theme) ramble on like stoned hippies until
> the faster-paced ("Schneller") Coda of No. III finally gets to the point.
>
> As played here by Kell and Rosen, Nos. I and II sound appropriately
> contemplative, in a low-key way--somewhat undercut by Kell's shrill tone
> quality, although I greatly admire his intonation! In No. III, I don't
> quite agree with this interpretation of "Rasch und mit Feuer." It's brisk,
> yes, but should it sound this lighthearted? I think No. III should sound
> more passionate, more serious. However, I don't have any scholarly
> authority for that "should." It's just my reading of "mit Feuer" and quite
> likely wrong, since I read German about as well as Shadow Cat speaks
> clarinet.
>
> This recording follows the Peters edition so closely that it may be the
> edition Kell and Rosen use. Differences (omitting a few places where Kell
> tongues so gently inside a slur that I don't think it amounts to a real
> difference):
>
> Bar I-17, Kell tongues the alt. e-flat (slurred from the clariion e-flat in
> Barmas).
>
> Bar I-33, Kell tongues between the 2 sets of 8th notes (Barmas puts a slur
> over the whole bar).
>
> Last bar of No. I, Kell holds his quarter-note the full measure (three
> beats) where the edition indicates a quarter note (no fermata) followed by
> two beats of rest. This measure has a peculiar instruction in the Peters
> ed.. Barmas (Schumann?) writes "attaca" under the bar, but then he's got a
> fermata over the double-bar! So, which is it...?
>
> II-30, on the first repeat, I hear the appoggiatura, though Kell swallows
> it somewhat. On the second repeat, I hear only a little hitch where the
> appoggiatura belongs.
>
> II-46, again, on the first repeat, I hear the appoggiatura. On the second
> repeat, he skips it.
>
> Last bar on No. II, same odd notation in the Peters ed., with "attaca"
> under the rests and then a fermata over the double bar. Huh?
>
> In No. III, Kell cuts ends of phrases very short for emphasis, a general
> characteristic of the way he plays allegro in most other pieces in this set
> of disks. *If* the Peters edition is an accurate score, then I think Kell
> goes too far here, cutting notes to half their length when they're not even
> marked staccato.
>
> III-9, Kell tongues the 8th-note run (slurred in the Peters ed.).
>
> III-60-61 he's tonguing notes slurred in the Peters ed.--sounds good,
> though.
>
> Last bar of No. III, in the Peters ed., after an emphatic quarter-note
> ending followed by three beats of rest to fill up the final measure,
> there's another fermata over the double-bar! Again--huh?
>
> Lelia Loban
> "The painter turns a poem into a painting: the musician sets a picture to
> music."
> --Robert Schumann, "Neue Zeitschift," 1843, quoted in "The Wordsworth
> Dictionary of Musical Quotations."
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of klarinet Digest
> ***********************************
>

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