Klarinet Archive - Posting 000075.txt from 2008/04

From: Tom McKay <tjmckay@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Schubert 8th Symphony - 3/4 or 6/8?
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:06:30 -0400

Although I am a little late getting in on this conversation, I will just
mention that when I played the Unfinished in college (Swarthmore, late 60s),
the conductor, more of a musicologist than conductor, waned to get the 3
against 2 tension going within the melody, and he wanted the second bar of
the clarinet melody played in 6/8 (3+3) (so the emphasis was on the first of
the three eighth notes, not the second).
Tom

On 4/9/08 10:26 AM, "Erik Tkal" <qtkal@-----.org> wrote:

> 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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