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Author: Elifix
Date: 2014-11-25 20:59
I been leisure-reading some historical stuff lately and saw the ideology of National Schools of Playing from the American (Bonade) to the French /German /British playing.
However, I have been unable to get much info regarding the Viennese school of playing. To be exact, not much detail explanation of the Viennese sound. I heard a couple of recordings and they don't really help projecting a strong image into my mind.
It seems that the style /sound has evolve over the years just like the British pre-1010s to the bigger bores.
Can anyone here shed some inner detailed advice on this school of playing such as the sound /ideology /instrument?
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Author: James S
Date: 2014-11-25 21:12
I would contact Bernd Schille about the Viennese school of playing. He actually makes a clarinet (the Solist II) based on the Viennese sound!
James
Owner, James' Clarinet Shop
www.jamesclarinetshop.com
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-11-25 22:23
There is much "homogenization" of sound these days and even heated debate over what IS a traditional sound for "X" school of playing.
However......
What I grew up with was listening to Alfred Prinz playing his Hammerschmidts in the Vienna Philharmonic. I would say that you had the same sort of "creaminess" of Leister from Berlin, but Herr Prinz tended to have a more covered or darker sound. To that end, the Austrian makers use a larger bore dimension than the German clarinet makers. Even the overall dimensions of the mouthpieces and reeds are different from German to Austrian. I can't say that I have ever seen a "Viennese" mouthpiece, but as a point of comparison you can reference the Vandoren White Masters and the Black Masters. The White Masters fit German mouthpieces just fine. I am told the Black Masters are made to match "Viennese" mouthpieces.
Now to get back to the confusion......
The entire clarinet section of the Berlin Philharmonic (a very German orchestra) is currently comprised of Austrian clarinet players.
You could also try contacting Gerold Angerer at Gerold Clarinets which ARE Austrian clarinets (they have made the stage at the Philharmonie in Berlin!).
info@gerold-klarinetten.at
...........Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2014-11-25 22:32)
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2014-11-26 00:19
I understood that the Viennese clarinets were for generations made in Austria but that the firm involved has now closed and Yamaha has made some Viennese models (as does Luis Rossi).
They were traditionally large bore c 15.2 mm similar to 1010s but totally different accoustics.
Listen to older recordings of the Vienna Phil, especially the eras of Alfred Boskovsky amd Vlach to get some idea of their tonal views.
Again traditionally they used very close (less than 1mm) and long lays, don't know what is used now if different.
If you can listen to chamber recordings by the Vienna octet to get a clearer image of their sound. The Brahms and Mozart quintets for instance have been recorded by many generations on Viennese players but try to find the brothers Boskovsky - Willi ( leader of VPO) and Alfred in their lovely version.
Post Edited (2014-11-26 00:24)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-11-26 03:34
Though sound is obviously important, I think that the notion of 'a school of playing' operates in a more fundamental dimension.
The difference between what Viennese players did and do, and what devotees of the Tabuteau/Bonade school did and do, lies in how the different players conceive the whole notion of what phrases – and bars! – are, and how they are to be embodied.
My own view, presented here several times, is that the Tabuteau/Bonade school has obscured an important aspect of classical music – particularly in the US, but also elsewhere – for many years.
Whether you agree or not, a general understanding of the issue is long overdue.
Tony
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2014-11-26 04:55
I think the defferences in international tone quality throughout the years has pretty much disappeared in the last few dacades. There probably was a more distinct difference many years ago when I was a student in the 50s-60s. There were certain characteristics that were more obvious back then. Most of my friends and I could identify when we heard an English, French or German player on an orchestra recording back then. Russian and Austrian were close to German but we didn't always get it right. And then there was the American school of tone. Well what the heck was that? We more often identified the quality by the principal clarinet players in the orchestras by city. There was the Philly, the NY the Cleveland, Boston tones etc. at the time. I remember my teacher, Leon Russianoff, getting angry when an article referred to the NY sound as his sound because Stanley Drucker, his student, was associated as the NY sound even though there were so many other great well known players and teachers living, playing and teaching in NY at the time. Besides, he already had several players playing in other major orchestras that sounded much different than Drucker. Russianoff didn't teach his sound, he taught you your sound. Today there are players all over the world that get dark, or bright, big or small tone qualities. It's not so easy to identify a country or city tone quality anymore. Even in Germany where every orchestra player used to be required to play on a German system clarinet before has been changing in the past decade. I've met several that play Buffets now. And there's a million mouthpieces on the market these days as well.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-11-26 06:34
Tony Pay wrote:
> The difference between what Viennese players did and do, and
> what devotees of the Tabuteau/Bonade school did and do, lies in
> how the different players conceive the whole notion of what
> phrases – and bars! – are, and how they are to be embodied.
>
> My own view, presented here several times, is that the
> Tabuteau/Bonade school has obscured an important aspect of
> classical music – particularly in the US, but also elsewhere
> – for many years.
>
> Whether you agree or not, a general understanding of the issue
> is long overdue.
It seems harder today to make these distinctions among "schools" than it was 60 years ago. So much has changed as a result of internationally accessible recordings from the 1950s onward. The players who were in their primes during that period were trained and developed their stylistic approaches in much more parochial environments. A student in the early part of the 20th century had much less exposure to playing from outside the traditions of his own national conservatory.
I understand from your earlier posts about the over-application of anacrustic, over-the barline Romantic phrasing of the French/American/Curtis Institute (Bonade/Tabuteau and others) "school."
How did these kinds of stylistic issues (apart from sound) differentiate the British, German and Italian "schools" of the same time period (and, I assume earlier), or did they? Who in your opinion are exemplars of these influences?
I'm especially interested to know what your thoughts are, not necessarily about individual players, but about the general approach of British players trained in the first half of the 1900s to issues of phrasing and meter (and occasionally to my ear, rhythm). Was there, in your opinion, Tony, a distinctly "British School" concerning things apart than the sound itself?
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2014-11-26 22:54
My beliefs that some of the main reasons that universal tone qualities have become so intertwined, assuming that's the correct term. is the availibilty of so many high quality recordings of so many fine solo and orchestra players in the past few decades as well as all the clarinet conventions we now have to hear players live. The other reason is the proliferation of so many different fine crafted mouthpiece that players have the opportunities to choose from. I think the availabilty of so many brands of reeds makes a difference too. When I was a student Vandoren, single cut, was the only truly professional reed that most players used in the USA. Even when I gave a master class in the St. Petersburg Conservatory back in 1991 I was surprised by the lack of reeds available to them even at that time. And Vandoren was the only brand I saw.
With that said, I still hear players with many different tone qualities both in my country as well as around the world. Everyone still sounds like themselves even though so many try to emulate other players. I just don't hear the national differences as much that I used to hear as a student in the 50-60s.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2014-11-27 00:23
Here is a master's thesis from 2000 (66 pages in German) by a Japanese clarinetist at Vienna Music University about „Wiener Klarinette versus Französische Klarinette“ (differences between Vienna and German systems are also addressed):
iwk.mdw.ac.at/lit_db_iwk/download.php?id=12394
Post Edited (2014-11-27 00:25)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-11-27 07:55
First of all, I find that I'm not interested in identifying 'national schools' because that seems to me to involve discussing how merely run-of-the-mill players play.
When I hear a searingly exciting Czech player play Janacek, it doesn't make me want to enquire how OTHER Czech players play. (I think I can extrapolate from my own experience that most of them will be quite boring.)
The other bit of that is that I'm sure that the searingly exciting Czech player won't do quite that in a Beethoven symphony.
So, what I try to do is to 'steal' the Czech player's 'Janacek' – for that sort of music. It simply is obvious to me, once I've heard it, that that's what that music needs.
To answer your question about the extent to which 'over-the-barline' playing was endemic in the UK: I think that I wasn't taught it as a child, but that it came to be accepted later as how you thought about phrasing. The question, "Where does it go to?" is one that I remember hearing often.
But then, I was an unusual case. I never had a teacher, in the sense that Americans talk about it. I stopped having regular lessons at 16, so everything after that I either constructed for myself or learnt on the job. (And my teachers up to that age were very inexplicit, so what you read from me here about, say, tonguing and breath control come entirely from my own investigations into 'what works'.)
That's not to say, of course, that I didn't learn almost everything I know musically from other people. But it wasn't presented to me in lessons. It occurred in the process of our making music together.
I think that questioning the idea implicit in the question "Where does it go to?" occurred quite late in my career, and in a way I regret that. But when I listen to my early recordings, I don't find that I employed over-the-barline phrasing all that much, so perhaps I already intuited that what Tabuteau had to say wasn't my own cup of tea.
In the UK, people are 50-50 divided in understanding the issue. Even in my own orchestra, which is supposed to be an exemplar of performance practice, there are far too many people who instinctively think of a bar as an opportunity to make a crescendo.
Anyhow, I have to say that I deplore the Tabuteau/Bonade formulation presented in McGill's 'Sound in Motion'. You can criticise McGill's unsound arguments, but proper rebuttal lies in the presentation of the better alternative. We have to go on doing that.
Are these ideas still built into American pedagogy?
Tony
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-11-27 10:00
Ok, here I go over simplifying things again but.......
Isn't the Tabuteau thing "the number system" of dynamics? That is, you break down the softest and the loudest you can play into eight levels (Tabuteau took this from the eight degrees of the scale). Now, as you play you assign specific numbers of volume to the notes in order to "order" how you play a phrase and ensure you have variety of dynamic from note to note.
I was exposed to this in 1983 at a lecture by Ingnatius Gennusa. Most of the audience reacted as if he had three heads, so I think it's safe to say that this is not an intrenched idea here in the US.
I like to simplify things even more and say, "Higher =louder, Lower=softer" barring harmonic realities and composer directives. I am told THIS is an idea that comes from European conservatory training. Is there any truth to that?
Honestly kids today at least in the most formative years are only being taught fingerings and beating time (and I mean BEATING time), so it's hard to see how any of us survive to play music.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Elifix
Date: 2014-11-27 19:08
Thanks for thesis!!
I do agree that the schools of playing is less distinct now but thought it was interesting to know why certain styles became popular and what was their individuality.
I heard the Boskovsky recordings and some of the old VPO recordings as compared to Alfred Prinz or the current VPO players or those that use Viennese bores and there was a vast difference. Perhaps it's because of quality of the recordings; don't know?
"Creamy"? No idea! They all sound great for sure!
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2014-11-27 19:15
Paul Aviles wrote:
> I like to simplify things even more and say, "Higher =louder, Lower=softer" barring harmonic realities and composer directives. I am told THIS is an idea that comes from European conservatory training. Is there any truth to that?
I'm probably showing my inexperience and lack of understanding but isn't this simplifying things a bit too much? Wouldn't a good composer have indicated the dynamics, or is "Higher =louder, Lower=softer" always sous-entendu by the experienced musician? Or are things even more complicated, and it depends on the era/type of music/individual composer or any other combination?
--------------------------------------
The older I get, the better I was
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-11-27 20:10
Paul Aviles wrote:
> Ok, here I go over simplifying things again but.......
>
>
> Isn't the Tabuteau thing "the number system" of dynamics?
The numbered approach to dynamics was another, as far as I know, unrelated "system."
My old copies of the etudes I studied in college are full of brackets and arrows indicating phrases that always go from whatever comes after the beat to the next beat. The crux of the approach (I wouldn't call it a system so much as a style) is that you always lead to the next strong note - i.e. ONE | - e - and-a-TWO | e - and - a THREE | etc. with a sense of building or at least maintaining intensity (not necessarily a crescendo) through the subdivisions and culminating with the next strong note. When this happens after the last beat of the bar, the subdivisions nearly always lead toward the first beat of the next measure. Tony calls it "over-the-barline" - I would be more inclined to call it "toward-the-beat" but the effect is certainly to phrase "over-the-barline" when the barline is involved. By doing this, the intent is to make each note in each phrase important and to keep the overall phrase driving forward toward wherever its harmonic and rhythmic high point is. It is, in a way, the application of glue to the pieces of a phrase to unify it. It was also meant, I think, to keep the inner subdivisions more rhythmically precise to avoid rushing or losing intensity and focus between beats.
There are, I think unarguably, musical styles where this phrase treatment is appropriate. As I have learned from reading here, it isn't always what's needed, as Tony often reminds with respect to the Classical style. The problem with the Tabuteau/Bonade/Curtis approach is that it was, as far as my experience went, considered a universal way of phrasing.
I'm not certain, because Tabuteau and Bonade taught at Curtis slightly before my time, how universally accepted this style was among the rest of the Curtis faculty of the day. But Tabuteau was also the coach for the woodwind chamber music program at Curtis during his time there as the oboe guru, so every woodwind player, at least, who went through Curtis's program was exposed (from what I've heard, rather forcefully) to his musical ideas.
To answer Tony's question, I don't know how much this (toward-the-beat or over-the-barline) is taught today in the U.S.. I haven't had a formal lesson from anyone in over 40 years, so I have no experience with what recent pedagogy here or elsewhere consists of. There are a great many of us, though, who were trained during the '50s and '60s and, I'm certain, many are still observing and teaching the same conventions. Old habits can be hard to break.
Karl
Post Edited (2014-11-27 22:05)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-11-29 01:17
Still this description is based on the RHYTHM as delineated by the bar line, not position of the note within the context of 'a phrase.'
I would only add: Listen to great singers and how they utilize dynamic contrast and just where the highs and lows of those dynamic contrasts fall. There ARE many great instrumentalists that DO NOT phrase this way, but there are many who do. My favorite instrumentalists to listen to for really wonderful ideas are pianists. For as they play, it is the closest thing to a full ensemble of ideas under the fingers of one mind.
...........Paul Aviles
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2014-11-29 07:15
Paul, I agree with you about pianists, but there were so many differences between major pianists that few generalizations can be made. Rudolf Serkin was closely connected with Curtis for several decades. His phrasing has often been described as "square", not necessarily intending a criticism. Serkin's performances were uneven, but when they worked they were compelling and authoritative, and quite recognizable as his and nobody else's.
Several of Serkin's Beethoven recordings are favorites of mine, but I'm having trouble associating kdk's description of the phrasing style from Curtis with those performances. Maybe I need to listen again. Serkin's musical background was Viennese, but I think his style was very different from much of what I've heard from other Viennese musicians.
Before Serkin, Josef Hofmann was also closely involved at Curtis. Hofmann's pianism was jaw-dropping. His piano recordings have next to nothing in common with Serkin's. Example: their two versions of Beethoven's Waldstein sonata.
Mieczyslaw Horszowski also taught at Curtis a long time. If memory serves, his phrasing in some recordings may have approximated what kdk described. Horszowski left some wonderful recordings, and also (imo) some rather boring ones.
All great artists amount to being something like laws unto themselves, rendering comparisons meaningless. In the pantheon of great pianists, phrasing and other expressive modes have differed so much that I"d be hard pressed to describe any broad stylistic common ground. Maybe I could say that they usually had fairly self-consistent styles wherein they executed some aspects so well that any accompanying weaknesses seemed acceptable, and that they able to depart from - or violate - their usual style if they had stong feelings about some particular piece or phrase.
Paul, did you have some particular pianists in mind whose phrasing and styles you find especially inspiring or enjoyable, or perhaps representative of the geographical schools of performance mentioned here?
(BTW, during my 3-plus decades away from the clarinet, I became a pianophile; I collected a ridiculous number of classical piano recordings, I listened daily, attended recitals when possible, read every relevant book or article I could find, surfed relevant sites and groups, etc. I never played piano, but pianistic expression has been deeply absorbed in my musical self, and it undoubtedly affects what I do on clarinet now, usually without my conscious notice. It's gratifying to read another clarinetist expressing relevance in music from such dissimilar instruments.)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2014-11-29 22:38
I have to admit that even though I studied with several major teachers, including some Curtis graduates, in the late 57s and early 60s as well as having played in the same section with Iggy Gennusa for several year, I've never even heard of a Tabuteau method although I was very familiar with who he was. I hope this helps answer Tony's question though I noticed he said goodbye to us.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-11-30 02:37
Ed Palanker wrote:
> ... I've never even heard of a
> Tabuteau method although I was very familiar with who he was. I
> hope this helps answer Tony's question though I noticed he said
> goodbye to us.
>
That's true, Ed, it was never presented to me as a "system," nor was it ever attributed by any of my teachers to anyone in particular as I was studying and growing up. My major teacher in college was Gigliotti, who studied at Curtis with Bonade during Tabuteau's heyday, and my teachers before that had been students at Curtis either of Bonade or of Gigliotti. With one exception - I studied for a year with Leon Lester, whose major teacher, I think, was Cailliet. But he never, as far as I can remember, talked about direction toward the beat. I only began hearing the association between that kind of phrasing and either Bonade or Tabuteau in later years. I assume they didn't make it up - that they learned it in Europe - probably the Paris Conservatory - (probably along with the numbered dynamic levels) and brought it with them to Curtis. (Whether or not Cailliet came from a different line of influence I've never researched.)
But, although Tony refers to it as Tabuteau's over-the-barline approach to phrasing, I don't have any idea if it was a specifically French style, as distinct from Italian or Russian or Eastern European styles, so I don't really know from my own experience whether it's really appropos the original poster's question or not.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-12-01 01:54
Just to answer about pianists:
I do have specific performances of specific players that resonate with me, but I unfortunately often do not remember which those where.
I do know that I was recently overwhelmed by the amazing Alexis Weisenberg recording of the Tchaichowsky Piano Concerto with Karajan as well as Weisenberg's performance of a piano reduction of Stravinsky's Petrushka.
What amazes me about great piano performances is that you have a percussion instrument (you bang out one note after another....... without the ability to sustain a dynamic as you do with most other instruments) that in the right hands can convey phrasing with such meaning and direction. It is SOOOOO clear listening to a great recording of a Chopin prelude (for example) that phrasing is not only subtle use of dynamic but also the subtle use of dynamic with the subtle use of pulse.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2014-12-01 05:31
Paul: "It is SOOOOO clear listening to a great recording of a Chopin prelude (for example) that phrasing is not only subtle use of dynamic but also the subtle use of dynamic with the subtle use of pulse."
That is a wonderfully apt analogy. Thank you.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2014-12-01 18:40
.....and yet I've never heard a clarinetist that had the phrasing that Miles Davis had...
Bob Draznik
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