Klarinet Archive - Posting 000022.txt from 2010/06

From: "Colin Touchin" <colin.touchin@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] clarinets in original key
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:33:24 -0400

Good to read comments, thanks, all. At least part of my note is new - the
integration of our hopefully authentic/accurate sounds within an ensemble -
i.e. what we do must be relevant to the ensemble as well as to our own
desire for rightness in choice of key or country and period of manufacture.
For sure oboists do have other instruments they need from time to time, but
most oboes are in C (even when baroque pitch is used). But string players
for example do not usually use different, say, violins for different pieces
within one programme, rather they take pride in changing their technique to
imitate the appropriate sound for that composer's work so far as their
experience, training and practice allow. Although we players know there
are fundamental differences in sound of our different-keyed clarinet family,
we also know it is not impossible to make one in Bb sound passably like
another in A in most of the range and in most works. Indeed we all strive to
produce a wide range of tone colours (don't we?) for different music anyway
and specific passages within one piece for variety and musical satisfaction;
it is illogical and dull for a piece to be played all mf, or all legato, so just
one tone colour, however beautiful, is also a severely limiting approach to
expressive playing.
A clarinettist playing with one orchestra might adapt colours to suit the
string (and wind, brass and percussion) section's preference for tone in their
repertoire, and, moving to the next ensemble, have again to change sound
to suit the new environment.
Although a clarinettist and recorder-player, when conducting I avoid letting
my preferences for those instruments take priority over the need for the
whole orchestra or ensemble to blend together with the resources of that
group of players with that group of instruments at their disposal (so, yes, we
liked Keith's Cs!). If some but not all players have access to all the
"correct" instruments as notated, it may be better not to use them all unless
all the players can find an appropriate blend which incorporates correct and
"not-quiite-right-but-the-best-we've-got"; if players can sound more fluent
and the ensemble more successful by using transposed versions on some
instruments then why not make a more convincing result?
Equally, isn't it a shame that the opening bassoon solo of The Rite of
Spring now sounds beautiful, or the bear on high unison clarinets in
Petroushka is in tune? At the time of composition these were struggling,
awkward, almost impossible things to play well and so were ideally chosen
by the composer to create images for the dancers to capture and spectators
to understand, and the effort of production and the unpolished sounds
surely represent Stravinsky's intentions much more closely than refined,
impeccable delivery expected by players and listeners alike. These
distortions of the composer's intentions exemplify another area of debate:
to what extent should we use our 21st-century advanced instrumental
construction and performance skills and our CD-oriented search for
unblemished performance perfection to alter the composers' visions? Just
because we can doesn't mean we should.

The issue of articulation is also intriguing: a staccato dot tells us nothing
about the start of a note, only that it doesn't last until the next note begins.
Articulation is the study and practice of enunciating clearly the musical
elements to make our and the composer's message clear, and to do that we
mostly use our breath. Tonguing is about 20% of articulation, and is only
one of the ways in which we can point/emphasise/distinguish notes in a
particular way - but once we've tongued the start of a note (or not) it is only
the breath that will give life and shape and meaning to the note itself.
Historically wind players in the baroque period used at least half the letters
of the alphabet (see Quantz) to articulate and incorporated various breath
accents and shapes to add expression. Mozart's players would have known
at least some of these techniques from their older mentors/teachers, and
Mozart's notation in all his works would have reflected his expectation of
use of some of the baroque elements as much as any newer classical style.
Indeed his last work, the Requiem, incorporates a large chunk of baroque
compositional style and Don Giovanni has many similarities with Gluck's
Orfeo - if he could not escape his baroque heritage in these aspects he
almost certainly would have expected some baroque articulation. Colin.
_______________________________________________
Klarinet mailing list
Klarinet@-----.com
http://klarinet-list.serve-music.com