 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-01-07 17:04
We've been discussing in another thread whether it matters which clarinet you use to play the Mozart concerto.
I think this is illustrative of a wider question (indeed not a clarinet-specific question at all) about how faithful we need to be to the choice of instrument and to the performance practices the composer would have expected.
Forty years ago, it was common to hear baroque music played by a 100-piece symphony orchestra. Now, that is the exception. Most performances strive hard for authenticity, whatever that may mean.
Performing romantic music, we generally seem to care much less. It is still relatively unusual to hear performances of romantic music - Schumann or Dvorak, say - played on period instruments or with close attention to period style.
Now up to a point, this is reasonable. The modern symphony orchestra is not that different to the orchestra Schumann would have known. "Authenticity" is less important, because there is less to get wrong.
But I think there is a paradox here. In the decades around 1800, there was an attitude change among composers. Before 1800, they wrote to order. They wrote what would be paid for and played. They accepted that the music would be arranged for instruments other than those for which it was written. They accepted, indeed expected, that the performer would add ornaments. They rarely bothered too much about marking slurs and staccatos. After 1800, the composer ceases to be a craftsman and becomes a creative artist. He writes what we wants to write. He specifies in more and more detail exactly how he wants the music to be played. If he wants ornaments, he writes them in. He expects you to play the slurs he writes, no more and no fewer.
So perhaps it is the romantic repertoire, not the baroque, where we should care most about authenticity.
Point for debate - or shall we talk about ligatures instead?
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2003-01-07 18:24
Maybe I'm too philistine to offer much insight here, but I think some take "authenticity" entirely too seriously. Sure, I think the key signature is an absolute -- each key creates its own ambiance -- but slurring an occasional passage here and there when it's written tongued, or taking the tempo a few beats above the MM, won't necessarily detract from the tonal picture intended. I feel there is some wiggle room allowed within the framework of the piece to still be true to its intended statement. But if you take too many liberties, you lose focus.
Example: I have a couple of Nutcracker recordings I break out at Christmastime -- cheap recordings from no-name orchestras and unknown conductors. One blazes through "Dance of the Reed Pipes" like the maestro has a bus to catch, while the other takes a more relaxed tempo. I prefer it more relaxed. In this piece, I've always preferred for the stacatto trumpet bridge to be played very mechanically, like a wind-up toy. The fast version gets this part right, but the relaxed version plays it too loosely. If there's a single right way to play this piece as Tchaikovsky intended, then at least one of them is wrong. But to my taste, both of them get parts of it right. In the end, I prefer the relaxed version because the rushed tempo of the other one is a bigger sin than the one the relaxed version commits.
Recently I checked out a copy of Copland’s suites from my college library, with Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic. Now who better to interpret Copland than his good friend Lenny (other than Copland himself). Is it safe to assume he knew what Copland wanted? If so, the blazing tempo of his “Hoe Down” must be right on the money. Playing “The Minute Waltz” in 54 seconds has nothing on this puppy. But do I like it? No way. All the imagery the piece inspires is lost in a flurry of hurried notes and rhythms. To my thinking, the version you hear on those Beef Council commercials conveys a better picture of frontier life than Bernstein’s interpretation.
I like what I like. I may get laughed out of the conservatory for my opinions, but there y’go..
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2003-01-07 21:51
I'm with you Ralph. I like what I like, and I like the great old expressive players on various instruments. Pablo Casals, the older Serkin, Segovia when he was very young. I get the impression that these performers had something inside of them that they said, not just expressing the composers 'intent' or trying to be 'authentic.' The old performances I love are not with out bloopers, but the incredible emotion of the 'on purposes' out weigh the mistakes. I actually get tired of the arguements about the composers intent, and authentic playing.
Perhaps we should have the orchestras perform in the dead of winter with their breath condensing in the cold theaters to get an authentic early Vienna experience. Didn't the violinist wear thin leather gloves, and I recall that the heat/light sources left soot in your lungs and some conducters keep time by banging rhythm out with a staff on the stage floor.
The authenticophiles, when in excess, remind me of the famous banjo joke really,
"how many banjoists to screw in a light bulb?"
Two, one to do the work and the other to say 'Earl (Scruggs) didn't do it that way.'
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-01-08 00:55
Without those who strive for authenticity (like Christopher Hogwood) you'd have no basis for comparison on what you liked or didn't like, and no idea of what it <i>might</i> have sounded like.
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Author: Allen Cole
Date: 2003-01-08 04:38
I just can't get comfortable with the idea that period instruments are needed. I guarantee that ANY period player would trade his/her instrument for one of ours in a New York minute. If Stalder and Muhlfeld were to come to me today, I could open an antique clarinet museum for the cost of a couple of Greenlines--or even a couple of used Bundys.
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2003-01-08 05:27
There are even more authenticity issues in choral music. I sang the Bach Christmas Oratorio a month ago with a director who insists on performing in the written language, in this case German. We did a most credable job of performing the work, but the audience became restless about half way through, and perhaps 10 percent left before the end. I suspect that they came expecting to hear about angels, Mary, the child, shepards etc, and it was all in there, but understandable to almost no one. (A translation was provided in the program, but imagine trying to follow it in a darkened church.) Of course Bach wrote in German for a German audience, would he not have approved of an English performance in the US? (He could have written in Latin, but this was post Martin Luther, and church services in the Lutheran tradition are in the language of the congregation.)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-01-08 07:47
"Authenticity" is a misnomer. Like Ginny said, if one really wants to be "authentic", then one should perform in a cold hall in the dead of winter. However, the period instrument players are not trying to be "authentic" in that way. What they are striving for would be better described as a "historically informed" performance.
In Baroque and Classical music, historically informed performances would involve more research into what was NOT written in the score, playing conventions which the composer would have expected from the performers of his day. However, even Romantic music, with its increasingly detailed notation, can sound very different in a historically informed performance. I've played 'Die Fledermaus' with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and his version sounded completely different from what has already become a "traditional" way of playing Johann Strauss.
Ginny implied that only the old performers had anything to say, and that performers on period instruments are only interested in the composer's intent. I can only deduce that she hasn't really listened to many period instruement recordings or performances. For a start, try listening to John Eliot Gardiner's Symphonie Fantastique for one of the most emotionally charged and colourful performances of this work.
Allen Cole wrote:
>>"I guarantee that ANY period player would trade his/her instrument for one of ours in a New York minute"
I doubt that very much. Our modern instruments don't sound better than the old ones, just different. I don't think that the sound of the modern clarinet is preferable for performance of Mozart, and I doubt Stadler would either! Besides which, some things are easier to play period instruments- eg. performance of the Brahms sonatas on a copy of Mühlfeld's instruments makes the frequent large interval legato leaps much easier and homgeneous.
Jim E. asks about performing Bach in English. Of course it is possible to do that, but then all the accents would be on the wrong words, and most of Bach's ingenious word painting would be lost. It all depends on whether you want to hear about angels, Mary, the child, shepherds etc., or if you want to hear great music!
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-01-08 12:20
Quite true, that if you don't know where you have been - it may be difficult to set a course to your destination.
That being said, if it were not for innovators adopting new and exciting instrumentation, we would be still be playing the flageolet and crumshorn in the woodwind section!
I believe that the overplayed Mozart pieces featuring the clarinet were a response to breakthroughs in the clarinet design.
It is also a very recent development to treat older pieces as sacrosanct... consumers of orchestral music in the 18th and 19th centuries agitated for NEW music above all.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-01-08 18:30
There are two other huge issues in performing Bach's choral music.
One issue is who should sing the soprano and alto lines. There is not much doubt that Bach would have expected the sopranos to be boys and the altos to be either boys, or men with high voices, or possibly men singing falsetto. Most of today's performances, however authentic they strive to be in other ways, ignore this and use female singers, especially for the soprano solos.
The other issue is how many singers are needed to a part in the choir. Most "authentic" performances use about 4 singers to a line in the choruses. But there is a good deal of evidence that Bach would often have used only one. In other words, there is no real difference between the "choral" parts and the "solo" parts.
In a church, or on record, these minimalist forces can sound astonishing. In a large modern concert hall, I think they would just sound thin and feeble, unless the singers used a wholly inappropriate operatic style of singing.
So does authenticity matter? Of course it does. You should not seek to interpret the composer's intention until you understand what his intentions were. It is fine to perform Bach with a 200-voice choir, in Russian or Chinese or Klingon, with the high trumpet parts played on soprano saxes, with the keyboard continuo on a Clavinova. But you should hear it done Bach's way first.
---
But (as well as being a long way from clarinets) we're some way from the question I raised when I started this thread. I didn't ask whether we needed authenticity. I asked whether it is really a paradox that we worry much more about authenticity in Bach than in Schumann, when it is Schumann rather than Bach who was very precise about what he wanted. I'd still like to hear views on that.
Now, I'm just going to play my YCL26 with the reed on top. More authentic that way....
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-01-08 19:20
Period instrument players DO "worry" just as much about performance practice in Schumann as they do in Bach. Listen to recordings by Harnoncourt and Gardiner of music from the 19th century- it's a completely different world than those by Furtwängler and Karajan! There are also an increasing number of clarinetists playing 19th century repertoire on period instruments.
Have fun with your reed on top!
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2003-01-09 00:53
I did see an Early Baroque Opera performed on period instruments some years ago. With one of the world's few living CASTRATOS singing the lead. As he was a very poor singer, I assume he was just trying to make lemonade out of lemons (I leave someone else to do the inuendos for this choice of phrase.)
Either that or someone took authenticity a bit too far.
As to romanitic recreations, I believe a large part of the romantic ideal was expressing the inner feelings of the player. Not a re-creation of some other person's inner feelings. This is perhaps why the re-creation is not done. Also, we still have player links to the romantic, such as old recordings of Rachmanioff playing Chopin. My son's piano teacher, for example, studied in Moscow with people who I believe either studied with Romantics or with their pupils.
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Author: Bob
Date: 2003-01-09 10:51
I believe that striving for authenticity is a worthwhile endeavor but I also believe that it is not "the end" but only one end. If one could ask individual deceased composers their opinions one would probably get a mixed bag. A good composer is not above accepting someone else's interpretation.....which he had not originally considered....but which he finds more agreeable than his own. ....Or rejecting less worthy attempts. What we like and don't like in music is mostly learned behaviour.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-01-09 11:35
I agree with Liquorice that there are some "authentic" performances of the romantics, and I said as much when I started the thread. My point, rather, is that they are still the exception, whereas in baroque performances "authenticity" is now the norm.
Ginny makes the claim that much of the romantic ideal was recreating the inner feelings of the player, not those of the composer. I have never seen in that way, but maybe she's right. I would love to see some evidence one way or the other. Maybe there are writings by romantic composers that would throw light on their views?
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2003-01-09 15:20
From Grout: about characteristics of Romantic music.
"The personality of the artist tends to become merged with the work of art..."
"Only instrument music-pure music free from the burden of words-can perfetly attain this goal of communicating emotion."
"This accent on the individual is present everywhere in Romanticism."
"Yet in this period more than any other that offers us the phenomenon of the unsociable artist, one who feels himself to be separate from his fellow-men and who is driven by isolation to seek inspiration within himself."
And it is the inspiration within self part that makes for an odd idea of creating an authentic romantic performance that relies on scholarship rather than inner expression. I am assuming that the player was an artist too of course, not merely a midi device, which would seem likely given what I understand of the period's social mind set.
There are many websites that offer insight into the poetry and art of the period as well. Another interesting exercise is found in a favorite book of mine "The Timeline of History." You can see the political, social and technical milestones that occured along with the music written.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2003-01-09 16:52
The difficulty I have with your argument, Ginny, is that I cannot tell what is meant by "the artist" and "the individual". The quotes do not tell us whether the romantic era felt that music should be performed in a way influenced primarily by the composer, or primarily by the performer.
I don't know the answer. Perhaps there is no answer. Perhaps it is not even a useful question.
What does surprise me is the suggestion that instrumental music is the most suited to conveying emotion. I doubt Wagner would have agreed. Nor Hugo Wolf. Nor even Richard Strauss, though he wrote plenty of instrumental music.
I challenge you all to find some quotes from composers. (Don't worry, I'm not secretly doing a research project.) It would be fascinating to know whether such-and-such a composer said, in effect, "what I write is sacrosanct, change it at your peril" or whether another said, "the score is a starting point, play it how you like."
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2003-01-09 18:52
If you are actually interested, I will discuss the period with my historian husband. I have had the impression from my reading that the player might not care what the composer intended if the player were a romantic. The romantic era is considered by some to be a rebellion against the excess rationalness of the Enlightenment. Why assume that the composer's intent must be followed, this may not have been the case in all periods or for that matter to all individuals, even current. Some composers may pleased when a musician finds new meaning in their work actually! In interviews I have followed with authors, when their intent is discussed, they are sometimes surprized at what people have claimed they intended. Sometimes pleasantly.
You can get your own quotes from composers, and feel free to study the era more. I would be interested in your research as to the mind set of artists and musicians from the era.
I have the impression that expressing the composers intent is a modern concept. Do you have any historic background on this concept
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-01-09 22:07
Expressing the inner feelings of the player was not only a Romantic ideal. CPE Bach wrote that "if a player is not himself moved by what he plays, he will never move others, which should be his true aim".
I disagree that a performance based on research into historical performance practice cannot be an expressive performance. I've heard many period instrument performances which show how serious study of performance practice can lead to a highly emotional performance. William Christie has even argued that specialisation is a way to musical freedom.
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2003-01-09 23:51
I Think Y'all missed a valid point. Shakespear said (I think) "First, let's kill all the lawyers." Should he not have said (or somebody later), "First let's kill all the sound engineers."?
Bob A
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