Klarinet Archive - Posting 000048.txt from 2008/04

From: Erik Tkal <qtkal@-----.org>
Subj: [kl] Schubert 8th Symphony - 3/4 or 6/8?
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:26:26 -0400

An orchestra I am playing with is doing Schubert's 8th ("Unfinished")
Symphony. The first movement is written in a 3/4 time signature, and I
have always "felt" the piece in that meter. However, the conductor is
insisting in conducting parts of it in a "2" feel of 6/8. So whereas I
always thought of the melody (e.g. dotted-half in one measure,
dotted-quarter eighth eighth eighth in the second) such that the first
eighth note in the second measure is more like a pickup to the third
beat, his conducting makes that first eighth note the first note in a
triplet.

It's driving me crazy having to think of the piece in this way (mostly I
silently ignore him and think in 3), but perhaps this is as it was
intended and I've just thought about it wrong all my adult life. The
piece definitely has a 3 feel in many of the parts (he switches back and
forth in his conducting), but if some is intended to actually have a 6/8
feel then I find it easier to do 6/8 over 3/4 than to try to play a 3/4
part over 6/8 (e.g. the syncopated sections).

I have been so far unsuccessful in finding any discussion of this online
and I can't say I've ever seen the piece conducted by a professional.
Listening to the recording I have (Academy of St Martin in the Fields)
doesn't help since the eighths seem to be without any accent and could
go either way. Has anyone ever come across this as an issue?

Erik Tkal

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