 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-01-28 21:29
After the long thread about vibrato I would like to go deeper into the subject and talk about what the real issue is: Style, and what approach one should have to historical music.
To play old music has not always been in fashion. Felix Mendelssohn is the one who has been attributed the rediscovery of Bach’s music when he in 1829 gave a performance of the St. Matthew Passion for the first time after Bach’s death. His teacher in composition Zelter, who was a famous Bach scholar at the time, had already inspired Mendelssohn.
One might assume that the great interest for Bach’s counterpoint and as a composer in general, in the second decade of the 19th century was strictly on a theoretical level and that Mendelssohn in his performance didn’t pay too much attention to baroque interpretation as such. Most likely he played Bach in a romantic manner that was suitable at the time and that’s probably what the audience wanted to hear. Baroque style was not “antique” and treasured yet, only very old fashioned.
Since then, generation after generation have paid very little attention to music written 50 years back and baroque and classical style as it was once performed have been dwelled in the shadow of history.
In the 1950th some pioneers took on the great mission to rediscover and to try to understand these historical secrets in real practice. In the beginning some people probably got away with murder in their vulgar attempts to imitate baroque style on cheep replicas of old instruments. But after many years of experimenting and a few generations later, after years of combining theory from research with brains and heart this movement was able to put the music back to life in a manner that Bach and other masters would have been quite satisfied with.
By 1980 the understanding of baroque music was on solid ground. Now the same procedure started with Mozart and the classical style. I took part from the inside myself as a clarinet player from the very beginning and I must say I’m quite proud of what we have achieved until now when it comes to give justice to classical music.
Since a few years conductors have been imposing this approach to modern orchestras. I’m amazed how far you can come when people have an open mind to changes. Sometimes tradition is the greatest enemy to the arts. Open your hearts to this beautiful way of making music. Look for new ways and release the music from the chains of tradition.
I’m interested what other professional orchestra/chamber musicians (and others) have to say about this. How are the reactions in your orchestras when conductors ask for more stylistic ideas that differ from what people are used to? How is your own approach to this?
Alphie
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-01-28 22:05
Alphie -
As you know from playing period and reproduction clarinets, the instrument itself often shapes your style of playing.
Several years ago, I played the finale of the Beethoven trio on a 9-key clarinet, with a fortepiano and a gut-strung cello without an end-pin.
The instruments balanced in a way that was impossible with modern instruments. The duet variation between the clarinet and the cello worked almost by itself, without the usual effort you need to match volume, tone quality and affect.
Also, things came easily, and appeared "out of the air" with the period instruments that I never thought of while playing the modern instrument.
A small example is in the coda, where the clarinet plays a descending scale, staccato, clarion F, E, D, C, followed by pizzicato cello, followed by the fortepiano staccato. I found that I could easily make a pizzicato effect on the clarinet (which is difficult on the modern clarinet). I did it just on the spur of the moment in a rehearsal, and the cellist and fortepianist immediately picked up on it, matching the articulation. For more, see http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/01/000095.txt
Also, playing a reproduction forces you to adjust your way of playing. I think this also makes you moer open to stylistic changes, particularly when you're playing with other instruments that make a sound different from what you're used to.
I also play a lot of recorder. Adjusting to an instrument that can't play loud makes me do things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and this carries over int my clarinet playing.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-01-28 22:21
Alphie/Ken... Interesting questions with some thoughtful responses.
It reminds me of the old debate about whether it is a sacrilege to perform Bach's keyboard works on the piano...GBK
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-01-28 22:46
GBK...If Glenn Gould is playing I don't mind.
Ken, You're absolutely correct about how much you get for free using period instruments.
Unfortunately I believe that the use of period instruments is a thing that's not gonna last forever. For various reasons I think that only a hand full of people in the world are going to be dedicated to this and that it's never going to hit the big masses.
I think the future is modern orchestras picking up on the idea. Lately I've had fantastic experiences with my orchestra under great leadership.
This doesn't mean that I have given up on period instruments myself. If I play chamber music I always try to pick the right people and an instrument that's in the ballpark of the music I'm playing.
Alphie
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Author: Renato
Date: 2004-01-29 10:22
I'm no pro, but after a two week's workshop heavily focused on interpretation, I came to the conclusion that we don't have to deliver the same message the composer delivered 100 years ago. It's nice to have people who want to preserve tradition and show our generation how the music, be it Baroque, Classical or whatever, probably sounded then. It's nice to get to know the styles and play in that same vein. But music is about feeling, and how we feel and are impressed by a certain piece of music. If everything we do must be based on what someone else did, or on what the books say, where is the art?
Even those composers might be reinventing their works if they were alive today. The musical message and means change with time. If Bach were alive today, he would have heard so many new things, would have gotten into conatct with so many different influences that... who knows what he would be coming up with?
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-01-29 15:22
"Someone" calls playing on antique instruments and probably antique style as well, a "modern fashion".
Renato calls it "tradition".
So, what is it, it can't be both at the same time?
Alphie
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2004-01-30 07:47
SHK wrote: "Style is something that doesn't change."
The word "style" has many meanings. It's meaning as a superior manner of doing things, eg. doing something "with style" is probably what SHK means in this statement. I think the kind of style that Alphie is talking about is a playing style, and this particular playing style is historically informed.
So, back to the original question...
I've played in some bad orchestras (which I won't name!) where conductors have tried to change the playing style of the orchestra to suit the period of the music. Many of these orchestral players were unable to change the way that they play. Some string players have been vibrato-ing so much for so many years that they just can't seem to force their hand to stop shaking! This is just bad musicianship.
Now I play in the orchestra of Zurich Opera House. This orchestra has a long (30 year) working relationship with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, one of the pioneers and main exponents of historical performance practice. Besides recording operas by Monteverdi and Mozart with our orchestra, he's even conducted Schubert, Verdi and Offenbach! Needless to say, the orchestra is very receptive to his ideas. We've also worked with William Christie, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Marc Minkowski- all conductors to whom historical performance practisce is important.
At the moment we're playing 'Fidelio' with Harnoncourt. It is absolutely the musical highlight of my year! What I find most interesting about working with someone like Harnoncourt is how unbelievably expressive the music is when he is conducting. It's as if he studies the whole performance practice thing, and then translates his findings into passionate, expressive music. For instance, just getting the orchestra to use different types of vibrato, sometimes none, expands the whole timbral palette. I used to think that 'Fidelio' wasn't such an interesting piece, and that Beethoven wasn't really an opera composer. Harnoncourt has shown how dramatic, expressive and beautiful the opera really can be.
In 2004, using historical performance practice is the most modern way of playing music, whether you play on old instruments or not. I think that this knowledge is something that will stay with us.
But only history will tell.
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Author: Jimmy
Date: 2004-01-30 12:49
Ken,
Where did you get the 9 key clarinet? what kind was it?
I have been wanting an old or reproduction clarinet that is in working condition but I dont know exactly what to get or where to get it.
also, what system are we talking about with the nine key clarinet?
BTW, I am playing the same finaly in may and reading your post plus the fact that I was already interested has convinced me that I should at least give the thing a try on a old clarinet.
Jimmy
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-01-31 17:09
How many conductors in the US actually do have an interest in historical performance practice? I've only worked with one, Nicholas McGegan who's English originally. He's conductor of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco.
http://www.philharmonia.org Take the oportunity to listen to the music samples.
Are there any more in the modern scene?
Alphie
Post Edited (2004-01-31 17:14)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-02 00:01
When we're talking Jazz- folk- or ethnic music, people are correctly very causious about stylistic values. We're making fun of classically educated people who play jazz too square and can't make it swing as well as jazz musicians who can't play classical music to save their lives even if they're excellent instrumentalists.
But why are some people getting almost aggressive when it comes to histrical performance practice. Sometimes it's like opening Pandoras box to only suggest that there are other ways to approach this music than the traditonal "square" way. SWK wrote: "semi-talented original instrument jerks". You obviously don't have that many connections in the field. Why are you so angry?
Roger Norrington is not one of my favorits either as a person, but I can appriciate a lot of what he's done especially in the romantic field.
This psycology really interest me.
Alphie
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2004-02-02 07:23
Harnoncourt has got absolutely no conducting technique. But he's a fantastic musician, and it's very ovbious when watching him what he wants. As far as playing together with someone like that conducting, that's just up to the orchestra to do on their own. And it's not impossible- after all, most performances of baroque/classical music weren't conducted in those days anyway.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2004-02-02 07:25
Some of the best musicians that I've worked with had little or no conducting technique. I've also worked with MANY conductors who have perfect conducting technique, but are boring musically!
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Author: Markus Wenninger
Date: 2004-02-02 08:16
There´s no way of somehow eliminating the time passed, this span between the now and the "historical time". Most often the discussion of what it means "to play baroque compositions on baroque instruments the way baroque people played it in baroque times" - I never saw the point of this besides a more differentiated knowledge about musical history. It will always be a concert of our times, and not "how it used to be way back". Only since recording technique was invented, something like a historical performance makes any sense. BUT: I´ve played several contemporary concerts together with performers on renaissance instruments, and their sound was extremely fascinating, their intonation and really weird phrasing and all. I loved this. When I listen to medieval music, this often sounds completely avantgarde to me, because of this "such a long time past that it sounds music on the edge again" - phenomenon. The justification of all the work and energy going into historical research is justified, to my humble opinion, by the use one can make of it in the present.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-08 00:08
The other day I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is a linguist. She’s specializing in research about translations of ancient French and the problems to convert these manuscripts into modern French as well as into other languages and maintain the right sense, timbre, colours, metric form and metre in some cases. The complete meaning intended by the author.
This is a great responsibility. She has to know practically every piece of information available about the author. Complete background, what shaped the author and the ideas represented by him. The political climate in the region, what influence the author was under at the time and such.
She can only deliver a personal interpretation after having digested all this information. And she’s doing this out of pure interest and search for the truth.
The interpretation given by a reproducing artist like an actor, a translator or a musician can never be entirely your own. Consideration has to be taken as much as possible to the intentions given by, in our case, the composer.
Art is always in the mind of the observer. As musicians our job is to observe the music, digest the information given in the score based on good education and experience and deliver it to the audience who’re not as educated as we are. If we don’t do our homework one step will be lost.
It amazes me how unwilling musicians often are to care about these matters. ”It’s usually done like this”, “this is how we do it by tradition”, “the highest note is the high point in the phrase”.
Watching a painting by Picasso not knowing anything about him nor the painting, you will not be able to understand anything of what you see. You will put your audience in exactly the same situation if you walk on stage unprepared intellectually as well as technically, or you’ll just give them the wrong message. We owe the audience to give them as a complete performance as possible. We can only deliver the whole picture by putting our hearts and souls into the music and walk a mile in the great masters shoes. Everything else is just an act of morons.
The above is closely related to historical performance practice and love for music.
Alphie
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Author: stickpoet
Date: 2004-02-08 04:17
you guys are a little out of breath
hyperventilating and huffing and puffing that is
past and present past and present and again present
that unbending vibrato and funky straight arrow guys
but then what about our effing future
how long are you guys gonna
hold onto the past
that chilly bygone past that is
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