Klarinet Archive - Posting 000221.txt from 2010/08

From: "rien stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cantabile
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:45:54 -0400

Expressions like "cantabile", "espressivo", and so on, in my view are very vague. I gave my own interpretation to these as being very subjective, (as "pp" "f" and so on are!), and whenever I had a student encountering this kind of mark, I always told him or her to try to sing that part of the composition, tomake sense of it. I once had a student, taking an examination, who was very much criticised by one of the examinators, who thought she was playing it exactly the way I had told her. Thus I took her instrument (mine was at home), and played it the way I "would have done it". The examinator asked me about my performance and concluded "You heave a bad taste" (he was a professional trumpet player), and we had a lengthy discussion. I received an "F" degree, my student an "A". (For the Dutch among us: my result was three, hers a nine).

Dan Leeson will, I assume, agree with me that all kind of indications on dynamics, character and so on can be compared to saying the sound of an instrument is "dark", bright", or whatever. It is just an indication, and nothing else, no one knows exactly what is meant by it, and we will have to make up our minds, whether to play this particular section this way or that. In many pieces an indication of dynamics even can have different interpretations (especially with Wagner and, p.e. Bruckner!).

Rien (to the English-speaking among us: Rheene, not Ryan)
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