 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jez
Date: 2003-11-13 23:40
Now I'm not, normally, one to complain about conductors, but a new way has arisen for them to make my life uncomfortable.
We're playing Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique so I get to play the Eb part in the last movt. I've played it many times before, so wasn't envisaging any problems until after the rehearsal today (the first concert's tomorrow) the maestro, an eminent Frenchman, told me that he didn't see why some of the quarter-notes in the opening solo had trills and others not. Could I add some more in "especially on the second beat"?!!!
I've spent 30 years trying to remember which of the damn things have trills and which don't.
I suppose I'll get away with these concerts, I can do what I like, but what about the next time I have to play it for some other conductor with more regard for the composer's intentions? It'll be like starting to learn it again.
If anyone happens to hear any of these performances, it's not that I can't read music anymore, I'm just, as ever, doing what I'm told.
Post Edited (2003-11-13 23:42)
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-11-13 23:52
Let me guess ... the conductor (quite literally in translation) makes "cakes"?
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
Post Edited (2003-11-13 23:52)
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-11-14 00:48
I tried gentle persuasion once and, well, you see where I am today....
- r![[cool]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/cool.gif) n b -
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2003-11-14 04:59
Man, jez....
That's about the worst orchestra job story I've EVER heard.
Not that I've heard many...it's just THAT bad!
All the best,
Katrina (who's very glad she never has to do stuff like that and feels great sorrow for poor jez)
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Author: CJB
Date: 2003-11-14 12:57
Jez
Good luck!
I think it was probably your playing of the last movemment of Symphonie Fantastique back in the early 90s in Nottingham that convinced me that the Eb could be played musically! I'd just taken up the instrument on one which was about a semitone out of tune. As it was our A-level set work we went up to Nottingham to a BBCPO concert which inspired all of the group.
I'm sure after a break you'll find it easy to return to the correct trill places as it will always feel wrong with the additional ones.
CJB
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-11-14 13:03
Well....considering he is French.......maybe he knows something that "we" don't.....
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2003-11-14 22:07
jez, I don't know if I would accept a suggestion like that. Why don't you politely confront hem, telling him that this feels strange and ask him what his sources are. A serious conductor don't mess around with manuscripts like that if they haven't done their homework and know what they're talking about. This solo is very famous and you're the one being in the spotlight. You have the right to know where he got it from.
Alphie
P.S.
(jez, We had the premiere concert of our Dutilleux festival last night. "Métaboles", "L'arbre des songes" (violin concerto) and "Shadows of time". Great concert, thanks for the inspiration.) D.S.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-11-14 23:10
.....but who knows what Berlioz really wanted played. The score isn't always the last word on interpretation. Anyway, Berlioz won't complain either way. Sorry, but I can't sympathize with you......play it his way or drop out.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2003-11-15 00:18
Someone who knows wrote: "I am not sure the orchestral musician 'has the right' to put the conductor on the defensive and make him provide sources for his interpretive ideas"
Making obvious changes in the score is not "interpretive ideas", it's making an arrangement, like did Stokowski occationally, but he didn't claim originality in those cases.
Alphie
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2003-11-16 03:25
Unless we assume that errors have been introduced during the editing process over the last 170 years, which is possible, I'd tend to assume that what's in the music is exactly as Berlioz wanted. Just look at the directions in his scores; you need more than schoolboy French to understand his instructions. He was fastidious in ensuring that his intentions in certain (admittedly not all) passages were clear.
In this case, Jez, I think you can accept the fact that you're right, and he's the conductor.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-11-16 14:37
Guess I'd better not mess around with the K622 then since what is written is what Mozart really wanted.
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Author: jez
Date: 2003-11-16 19:46
diz,
you had me for a while there. I suppose with a certain amount of linguistic twisting he could be said to make German cakes. If we stick to French he would seem to bring about faults; far more appropriate in this case.
Someone who knows,
If you've heard it played too loud for your taste, don't blame the player. It's up to the conductor to balance things the way he wants them. The poor clarinettist may have been told to play that way, or if he was just too loud he should have been told so.
On reflection the first note I chose to put in an unmarked trill was the Ab which I trilled to a Bb. Now this would have been almost impossible to execute on an instrument of the time. I wonder if this may be partly how it came about.
jez
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-11-16 23:27
BobD wrote: "Guess I'd better not mess around with the K622 then since what is written is what Mozart really wanted."
Oh, go ahead, Bob. Feel free. Aside from earlier comments regarding improvisation and ornamentation, we do not know what Mozart wrote for the K622, since his autograph of this piece (if ever there was one) does not survive.
Berlioz, on the other hand, was specific with regard to what should be played. If that matters to anyone.
Having written that, my view (so what?) is that a soloist in a concerto has the responsibility for what's played. The conductor is maestro to the orchestra but must be responsive to the soloist. However, a solo passage in a selection other than a concerto is directed by the conductor, and that's it. If it is within your ability to play it the way the conductor wants, that's what you should do.
In your position, jez, perhaps you could have commented when the instruction was first given something like, "My, that's uncommon. I've played this piece several times, always just as written. Could you please go over again just exactly what you want, so I'll be sure to get it right for you?" Then let it drop. We each have to suffer through working for clowns now and then, and making a big deal of it rarely helps. But a casual statementr of one's position is unlikely to fan any flames.
There is an old story of an inexperienced guest conductor who was giving an orchestra several unusual instructions regarding one piece. Finally, someone piped up, "If you don't shut up, we'll really play it your way."
Fortunately, I do not play symphonic music on the Clarinet (and never have). I wouldn't want to handle the frustration.
Regards,
John
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-11-17 00:20
Jez - do you use a C clarinet is such works (as Fantastic Symphony) when written, or do you transpose?
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Author: jez
Date: 2003-11-17 15:17
diz,
I hate C clarinets and would take a lot of persuading to use one.
We've used the C occasionally for the off-stage solo at the beginning of the 5th movt. but not for the rest. As a matter of interest I prefer to play the 2nd cl. part of the 4th movt on the Eb to warm it up for the finale.
jez
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-11-17 20:17
jez - I'm afraid the poor C clarinet has a rather "matter-of-fact" tone quality.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-11-17 22:22
diz and jez -
It's hard to disagree with you guys who make a living playing, but I think the little solo at the beginning of the Berlioz finale really requires a C clarinet. That way, the fingering -- and sequence of tone colors -- matches what the Eb plays a few seconds later. See Greg Smith's comments in the thread at http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=51955&t=51845 .
For Someone who knows -
You obviously have thought hard about these things. Please let us know who you are and where you play.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lisa
Date: 2003-11-18 00:43
Well, since this thread really isn't about Witches' Sabbath anymore, I need to vent about a related issue to the original post. This story is about deleting trills instead of adding them.
I play in a large, fairly good community band (NOT orchestra). I get to the concert last night and find out that the conductor has taken out all of the eighth note trills in Poet and Peasant. Now, I did miss last rehearsal for another rehearsal, and got zinged with the information 20 minutes before the concert. I just wrote "no trills" in my part and thought I was good to go.
Um, do you know how HARD it is to perform a change in the music without practicing it first??? The fast tempo the conductor takes only allows me to flip the trill once anyway, making a 16th note triplet out of it. I finally was able to tell my fingers to ignore the trills, but after playing the piece on and off over the course of many years, it was hard to "unlearn" it on the spot. Trying the passages before the concert without the trills would've also helped. <sigh>
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-11-18 02:49
Ken
Granted ... but my comment was only that it has a rather "matter-of-fact" tone ... I didn't state that I disliked it, as such ... in fact, in Rossini I find the use of the C-Clarinet rather homogenous (can't believe I typed that) and find that it blends delightfully with the "lightness of scoring" that Rossini brilliantly utilized.
I think jez is rather more unconvinced on the use of the c clarinet (correct me if I'm wrong jez boy)
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