Klarinet Archive - Posting 000421.txt from 1998/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] 1234/2341
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 22:17:11 -0400

On Fri, 9 Oct 1998 17:38:23 -0700 , kevinfay@-----.com said:

> Can't disagree more. (Actually, I can--but was looking for a catchy
> opening).

First of all, I think I should say that I don't think we can thrash this
out in a debate. It's a subtle sort of thing, a change of point of view
that you might come to appreciate by trying it out for yourself in your
own playing. In the article I wrote, 'Phrasing in Contention', I take
quite a large proportion of the twenty or so pages talking about how it
isn't prescriptive, how following it admits of varying degrees, and that
when successful, it involves the achieving of the sort of delicate
balance that excellent playing has always required. (Mostly, I'm
talking about how we can have phrases be beginning oriented, rather than
end oriented, taking the point of view that metre and phrasing are two
things that are inextricably connected.)

I'm sure you would be less outraged at the preliminary sketch in my
previous post if you were to read the whole thing.

> Year after year I suffered under an ensemble conductor who insisted on
> hearing the "pulse"--every measure was to have an accented downbeat.
> No matter that the phrase extended over 4 bars, no matter that other
> accents were placed in the score. Consequently, ever piece performed
> sounded like a Sousa march--fine for Sousa, lousy for Debussy.

This is of course a mistake, whatever music is being played. And
anyway, certainly for some of Debussy's music, the barline is very
unimportant.

It's interesting to see the change of importance of the barline as we
move from the eighteenth to the nineteenth, and then into the twentieth
century. To begin with, there was a weakening of its importance -- a
weakening that was paralleled by a change in the meaning of the notation
that had often been used to shift it: namely the slur, or phrasemark.
We know that Wagner was particularly concerned to eradicate the effect
of the barline on much of his music.

For a player in the eighteenth century, as the 'rule of the downbow'
indicates, the first beat of a bar was normally more important than the
others. But you have to read the word 'normally' in a particular way,
too.

Consider how you speak the sentence I just wrote. The word 'normally'
is slightly accented on its first syllable. On the other hand, the word
'particular' is slightly accented on its second syllable. Both of these
accents occur 'normally' -- that is to say, as part of the natural flow
of how you speak, and without interrupting that flow. The change of
emphasis is mostly almost imperceptible, and yet it is still there. If
I speak with great dramatic emphasis, the perceived emphasis *could* be
much larger.

In just the same way, if an eighteenth century cello section were
playing repeated quavers in common time (as they do in the first bars of
the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, say), then the natural hierarchy of the
bar would have been 'normally' represented in their playing. Moreover,
the degree of this representation is modulated from bar to bar, and can
change globally according to the mood of the music.

The effect is a very subtle one, and there is a difficulty in achieving
it nowadays, because players tend to *do* it, rather than just having it
be there, as would have been natural at the time.

To choose an even more subtle example: it is possible for a timpanist
imperceptibly to modulate the opening four strokes of the Beethoven
violin concerto so that it sounds both natural and elegant, and renders
more meaningful the equal hammerblows of the full tutti.

(Just as an aside about the opening tutti of the Mozart concerto, which
I take it we all know:-), it was many years before I appreciated that
the first and second bars are both decorations of a falling third.
Leading over the barline from first to second bar had obscured this fact
for me. The third bar consists of two falling thirds, twice as fast as
the previous ones, and bars 5 and 6 are both essentially decorated
falling thirds. Perhaps coincidentally, the number 3 is very strikingly
implicated throughout, more than usual in classical works. Three
sharps, motivic thirds, three registers including the basset register,
three repeated notes, a significant event at bar 333 in the first
movement...)

If your conductor friend above insisted that every measure was to have
an accent at the beginning, this doesn't sound like the sort of 'normal'
I'm talking about, does it?

> The Tabuteau approach was designed to train the player to remove this
> crutch. In a string of 16th notes, *none* should be accented unless
> there is a musical reason for doing so.

A well-written piece of classical music involves the interplay of three
rhythmic structures: metre, phrasing and harmony. Our job as players
is, among other things, to take care of the equilibrium between these
three rhythmic structures. In the case of 16th notes, I would say that
these are almost always modulated in some way, by one or other of the
structures. To modulate them according to the rhythmic structure in
addition to the other structures is not unmusical in the classical
style. Indeed, it is an essential part of the classical style.

If Tabuteau thought of it as a crutch (did he?) then he was simply
mistaken.

> Many pieces call for emphasis of the downbeat. Many fool with the
> accent, however--because we're thinking oboe, take the Scherzo of
> Beethoven 6 as an example--where the emphasis is emphatically not on
> the bar line. Tchaikovsky 4, or Romeo & Juliet. The Grand Partita.

Very true.

> These are not marches--why play them like one?

No, I'm far from wanting to.

> Which leads to the real rule--"no false accents!"

If you like. But what I'm talking about isn't capturable by what we
normally understand by the word 'accent'.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339

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