Klarinet Archive - Posting 000418.txt from 2010/08
From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cantabile
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:13:18 -0400
Dear Mr. Wakeling,
I am very sorry that I did not see your posts to me before.
>From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net> on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:46:42 -0400:
>On 08/19/2010 01:57 PM, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
>> On 08/19/2010 12:22 PM, Jennifer Jones wrote:
>>> What do you mean "5th bar of the second group"?
>>
>> I think he's referring to the passage starting at bar 22 of the 1st
>> movement, which is marked p but "sotto voce" (s.v.) and then in the 5th
>> bar (bar 26) switches to pp.
>
>My apologies, Jennifer, I'm going blind and stupid today -- I didn't
>recognize until after posting that you'd identified exactly this same
>passage.
It is ok that you missed what I said initially. It happens to me too.
>Can you clarify for me where you are referring to when you talk about
>"What appears to be a second group is marked piu p in the reprise
>beginning with the Ab octave jump (marked I)" ... ?
>
>I'm guessing that you are meaning a concert-pitch Ab, and that you mean
>the passage beginning on the upbeat to bar 9 ... ?
I was not referring to concert pitch Ab. I was referring to clarinet
pitch Ab in the chalumeau (which would be concert pitch Gb) which
jumps an octave to throat ab. This occurs in the first bar of the
last line on page 10 of the edition you referred me to:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Sonata_No.2,_Op.120/2_%28Brahms,_Johannes%29
Which I now see may be the third, rather than the second presentation
of that theme. I see now that it occurs in a very much changed and
abbreviated form in the second bar of the second line on page 7.
>The dynamic instruction that confused me for a long time was the
>difference between the "subito X" indications like sf, sp, etc.,
>compared to sfz (sforzando)... :-
Doesn't subito forte or subito piano indicate that you should be
suddenly loud (strong?) or suddenly soft and stay at that dynamic,
whereas sforzando means accent strongly and then back off to a lower
dynamic?
Googleing define: sforzando, I get five of eight definitions define it
as variations of starting with a strong initial attack or accent.
Only one comes up with suddenly loud. I favor the five definitions
using the word initial and accent. The word "initial" emphasizes that
the direction applies to the beginning of a note and accents usually
start with a strong attack and back off, whereas "suddenly" doesn't
say anything about the dynamic later, it just refers to the
transition.
Does anyone know if my sense fits with the general understanding of these words?
I notice that one of the definitions refers to an organ pedal:
2. In an organ or photoplayer the pedal which, when depressed, will
bring into play one-by-one all (or nearly all) ranks of the
instrument. * Synonyms: crescendo pedal, full-organ pedal.
www.mbsi.org/glossary.php
Maybe Lelia Loban has something to say on that topic? I remember she
has some organ experience.
On another reading of Michael Whight's post, I am not sure it made
sense for me to take him seriously in the way that I did. Perhaps I
should have been clued in by his reference to William Shatner's
acting, which I understand to be stilted, but only having a
superficial knowledge of Star Trek, I worked from the knowledge that I
have. The bit that caught me was his description of the first
section:
"The Brahms Eb first movement seems to me to have an overall cantabile
style though there are differentiations from the amabile opening to
the sotto voce second group."
This made sense to me, in looking at my copy of the music and the
recording that I have (Jonathan Cohler). Cantabile seems kind of
sweet, like amabile means semisweet (perhaps accounting for a sadness
of the minor key). The sotto voce does seem to be in an undertone,
perhaps in part because it is mostly in the chalumeau register, but
also in the way it is played in my recording. Though he is not
specific about the differences between amabile and sotto voce.
Then his response that "piu p is relative to whatever precedes it, so
it can be anything", which may be true, though I wasn't sure how to
interpret that. Mostly because of the bit about "it can be anything".
Nonetheless, I am sincerely curious about the difference in
terminology. In Jonathan Cohler's recording, it appears that the piu
p marking in the first bar of the last line on page 10 of the edition
cited above is played relatively quieter than the pp marking in bar 26
(the last bar of the third line on page 4).
In these recordings, the pp of the first sotto voce (bar 26) is softer
than the piu p marking of the recapitulation (last bar of the last
line on page 10)
Alexander Brash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaeXH8ts6t4
Wenzel Fuchs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaeXH8ts6t4
Do the Simrock first editions have Brahms notations, as he wrote them?
...or were there editorial modifications?
-Jennifer Jones
From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cantabile
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:57:18 -0400
On 08/19/2010 12:22 PM, Jennifer Jones wrote:
> What do you mean "5th bar of the second group"?
I think he's referring to the passage starting at bar 22 of the 1st
movement, which is marked p but "sotto voce" (s.v.) and then in the 5th
bar (bar 26) switches to pp.
By the way, you can download the original Simrock first edition of the
Sonatas (and the Quintet and Trio) from IMSLP:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Sonata_No.1,_Op.120/1_%28Brahms,_Johannes%29
http://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Sonata_No.2,_Op.120/2_%28Brahms,_Johannes%29
http://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Quintet,_Op.115_%28Brahms,_Johannes%29
http://imslp.org/wiki/Clarinet_Trio,_Op.114_%28Brahms,_Johannes%29
From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cantabile
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:46:42 -0400
On 08/19/2010 01:57 PM, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
> On 08/19/2010 12:22 PM, Jennifer Jones wrote:
>> What do you mean "5th bar of the second group"?
>
> I think he's referring to the passage starting at bar 22 of the 1st
> movement, which is marked p but "sotto voce" (s.v.) and then in the 5th
> bar (bar 26) switches to pp.
My apologies, Jennifer, I'm going blind and stupid today -- I didn't
recognize until after posting that you'd identified exactly this same
passage.
Can you clarify for me where you are referring to when you talk about
"What appears to be a second group is marked piu p in the reprise
beginning with the Ab octave jump (marked I)" ... ?
I'm guessing that you are meaning a concert-pitch Ab, and that you mean
the passage beginning on the upbeat to bar 9 ... ?
The dynamic instruction that confused me for a long time was the
difference between the "subito X" indications like sf, sp, etc.,
compared to sfz (sforzando)... :-
I wrote at 3:22 AM (GMT-07:00) on August 19:
Dear Michael,
What do you mean "5th bar of the second group"? On first reading,
that suggested the clarion D Eb F marked pp five bars after sotto voce
(marked B). However, I can't figure out how "second group" would
apply to that. What appears to be a second group is marked piu p in
the reprise beginning with the Ab octave jump (marked I). Since piu
means more, it seems that piu p would be equivalent to pp. But I
don't know the idiosyncracies of these words or the idiosyncracies of
Brahms to feel certain.
The edition that I am looking at the Schirmer's library of musical
classics; masterworks for clarinet and piano G. Schirmer New York /
London 1951
Does anyone know the relation between pp and piu p? I remember pp
from gradeschool as double piano and pianissimo, but I notice the
similarity between piu p and pp and since piu means more, begins with
p, and pp means more piano than p, I wonder if pp is an abbreviation
for piu piano. However, I cannot find any indication on the web that
this is the case. Is there someone who knows the answer to this or
has a reference that would shed light on this issue?
Thank you for your kind attention.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Jones
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Glossary_of_musical_terminology?t=7.
Wapedia says:
[snip] (inlining deleted)
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=pianissimo says:
[inlining deleted]
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