 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-01-06 16:32
In another thread, concerning the second movement of this piece, Ken Shaw wrote, in part:
>> I know that they talk to you about: .....5. Listening to the cello and piano, so that you match what they do and know when you have and don't have the melody. Also working with them to match one another's phrasing and integrate the ensemble.>>
Apropos this wise advice, there's a motif, beginning in the first half of bar nine, where the clarinet and cello together play two dotted quavers -- (you might as well get used to the European terminology for an eighth:-) -- ie, two crotchets, each shortened by a semiquaver rest; and the piano seems to answer with two interpolated quavers that are bound to each other by a slur that lies OVER a quaver rest in the middle. Both of these quavers have dots over them, as well as lying under a slur.
Two things about that:
(1) An alternative and I would say better way of thinking of the passage is that (a) the first bar cnsists of two slightly shortened (shortened by a semiquaver) crotchet chords followed by an interwoven semiquaver love-in between clarinet and cello; (b) these crotchet chords are begun by clarinet and cello and COMPLETED, rather than answered, by the piano; (c) the clarinet, cello and piano contributions to these chords therefore all end together, because the piano quaver has a dot over it and the clarinet and cello have their semiquaver rest.
This means that the music is less finicky, and more filled out and integrated than the notation makes it look. THREE semiquavers is quite long, after all.
(2) A further wrinkle, obtained by looking at Brahms's original MS, is that the piano quaver 'completions' originally had a horizontal line over the first and a dot only over the second quaver, still all under a slur. This means that Brahms was originally imagining a hierarchy of stress between the first and second chords, with the piano following the bar hierarchy implicit in the clarinet and cello parts; and that even if he decided not to make that explicit in the published notation, it's worth considering incorporating a suggestion of that in performance.
Of course, the hyped-up romantic background of many performers FORCES them to do exactly the opposite: unable to consider the possibility that the second chord might be lighter, they HAVE to play it stronger, and often incorporate desperate body-movements as they yearn towards the second half of the bar. (This is particularly incongruous when the piano does it, a bar later.)
But there's plenty of yearning to come later in the movement....:-)
Tony
Post Edited (2007-01-06 21:57)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-01-06 20:26
Tony -
Thanks for the kind words and the interesting information from the MS. I intentionally didn't discuss the phrasing in detail, because the player needed to get more basic things under control.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-01-06 21:03
Ken Shaw wrote:
>>I intentionally didn't discuss the phrasing in detail, because the player needed to get more basic things under control.>>
Yes, I understand that, Ken. That's why this is a different thread, and not intended for him -- well, not a response to him or to the intention of your post, at any rate.
Tony
Post Edited (2007-01-06 21:10)
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2007-01-07 16:21
Alfred Prinz is simply the best performance of this work..check on Eurodisc...very nice and not overtly mannered in any way...Devoid of affectation.
David Dow
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