Klarinet Archive - Posting 000021.txt from 2009/04

From: Sean Osborn <feanor33@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Glissando vs. portamento (question for new music
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:10:46 -0400

Most of the problems that I can recall off-hand now are the film
composers I usually work with. Half of them use gliss to mean a
slide and half want notes, all the while both using "glissando" and a
wavy line. Sometimes I'll even have to play the same marking two
different ways in the same film. Often in new music for me, the
problem comes when the word glissando is almost universally used, and
half the time the composers want a slide, and half the time they don't.

To be clearer, when I write, I use a line for portamento, meaning
slide, and a wavy line for glissando, meaning notes.

A famous example that I'm not completely certain of is the Bernstein
Sonata. He uses a wavy line and writes " poco gliss." in the second
movement. I'm inclined to lean more towards playing notes there, but
a slide is much more fun for me, so that's what I did on my
recording. Stanley Drucker performed it many times with Bernstein,
and on his recording, he does what I would call a "poco slide" or
"poco portamento." It seems to me that Bernstein was using it in a
manner that I would consider confusing.

I see from other research into the dictionaries' definitions, that
there is debate among "experts" about this. I would submit that the
Harvard Dictionary's definition, while perhaps not definitive, is
certainly CLEARER. If composers used those terms, their intentions
would be clearer to the interpreters.

Sean
www.osbornmusic.com

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