Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 2010/05

From: "Colin Touchin" <colin.touchin@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Klarinet Digest, Vol 3, Issue 40
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 05:08:02 -0400

Using the appropriate instruments makes a lot of sense, but inevitably leads
to major compromises. If only the clarinettists take this much trouble to
"get it right" then an ensemble is going to sound a mixture of different
period timbres - if all the horn, oboe, cello players, for example, research
and obtain the most suitable instruments and the techniques needed to go
with playing them in period style, then that effort and sincerity pay off in
performances which more nearly attune to the composers' likely, guessed-
at intentions.
In 1973 (one of the first reconstructed performances?) I conducted the
Eroica with original wind/brass instruments from the Bate Collection at
Oxford under the aegis of Antony Baines (we had volunteer students so
they used the only available modern strings and timps) and Professor
Joseph Machlis exclaimed afterwards "Now I know why Beethoven wrote
what he did". I also played in the Gran Partitta, the Adagio for clts/bhns,
the C minor Serenade with us all using eighteenth-century instruments - for
sure, lacking in techniques to control these unknown forces, but so exciting,
colourful and enriching.
If only some of the players can obtain or adapt to historically or
geographically appropriate instruments, then there is equal value in an
ensemble all using modern instruments interpreting with 21st-century ideas
and experiences as there is for an ensemble all utilising old machines and
doing their best to create the sound-world of the composer's time; but little
value in a half-and-half approach, or even 5%/95%. If we are particular
about using a clarinet in D, say, when we are sure the composer meant
that, then it only makes sense if every other element in the score is equally
specifically and accurately reproduced. If the Eb is very close to the D, so
too might the modern plastic-headed timpanum be close to the old calf-skin
(no way, my father would say, as we had calf-head copper-shell drums in
the house and knew how beautifully they sounded compared to any modern
version).
Tokenism in authenticity is illogical, although the debates amongst
clarinettists can be as entertaining and illuminating as their performances!
Colin Touchin.
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