 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-02-02 15:43
How fast should this movement be played? My 1943 Simeon Bellison arrangment shows 6/8 time with quater notes at 88. However, when I listen to today's CDs it seems that people are playing it 2 beats per measure at ~80 which is quite a bit faster.
Should it be played 2 or 3 beats per measure? Bellison scores it to give you the impression it's played in 2 beats per measure.
I know I should remember this but it's been 40+ years since I played it last and I'm suffering a senior's moment.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-02-02 16:54
Being able to play K622 fast is a great gift I suppose. My personal opinion is that you should play it at whatever tempo allows you to play it with feeling and good execution. So....after 40 years , take it easy.....
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2004-02-02 16:57
I typically like dotted quarter is equel to 78. That is the tempo that I perform it at. Others will prefer it a bit faster, but that is where I like it. As far as the beat, there are two beats per measure. For there to be three, it would need to be 9/8 rather than 6/8. To me, Mozart was more elegant than pure flash, and I think 78 is a good tempo. For the first movement I prefer quarter at about 116.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-02 17:22
Just for the record (oops..a pun), the tempo of the Marcellus/Szell recording is dotted quarter = 84...GBK
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-02 17:38
On another note (oops.. I did it again), the Carl Fischer (#W1668) edition, edited by Simeon Bellison is probably the worst of all available printed editions. It has a number of questionable notes, inconsistant articulation patterns and haphazardly thought out dynamic markings. ...GBK
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-02 17:38
There is plenty of flash in Mozart's work, including the Allegro of K622, and as SWK says you can't cram him in a descriptive box. Part of the genius in Mozart is how his music speaks on the page as well as in the air. If you grasp what was intended in the manuscript, it oh so naturally settles into a groove (to borrow a jazz term) where it just feels right. Put away the metronome for a minute and really look and listen.
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-02-02 18:19
Thanks for all the quick comments, I have both the Marcellus and Brymer recordings and was having a hard time rationalizing them with the Bellison score(W1668 and cost me $1.50).
Thank goodness I can continue at two beats per measure, relearning it at 3 would be close to impossible. However, playing it in 3 beats makes some of the acents/syncopation much more meaningful/interesting.
However, this still leaves us with the Bellison score specifying a quarter note at 88, which by my math makes a dotted quarter equal to 59. I can play it up to about 75 but much prefer the slower tempo. Was Bellison just being nice to students? Are there any recordings available at the slower tempo?
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
Post Edited (2004-02-02 18:23)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-02 18:28
bill28099 wrote:
> However, this still leaves us with the Bellison score
> specifying a quarter note at 88, which by my math makes a
> dotted quarter equal to 59.
As I stated above, The Bellison edition has many flaws. This is one (of many) misprints. His suggested metronome marking should read: dotted quarter = 88...GBK
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-02-02 18:40
>As I stated above, The Bellison edition has many flaws. This is one (of many) >misprints. His suggested metronome marking should read: dotted quarter = 88...GBK
That means the piano score is wrong too.
Merde, I rather prefered it at ~65. Oh well, guess it's time to speed up my Mozart.
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
Post Edited (2004-02-02 18:46)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-02-02 20:42
Bill -
The Louis Cahuzac recording from the 1940s has been reissued on CD. It has the slowest finale I've heard -- almost 60, and far too slow for my taste. He said in an interview that the tape (or the 78 rpm shellac) was dubbed at the wrong speed.
It's possible to take the movement at a moderate speed if you give a rocking "swing" to the sixteenth note sextuplets -- like a cradle rocking back and forth, or a dance, but for me, it needs more spritz. I think Marcellus sets the ideal tempo.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2004-02-02 23:31
Ken, I don't have that Cahuzac recording, but are you able to determine what key the rondo SOUNDS like on it? If it was dubbed at the wrong speed it should sound lower in pitch.
BTW, if everything is digital now, is there scope for "cheating" in recordings? I assume that digital storage means a performance can be recorded at one tempo, then have its tempo increased for the recording without raising the pitch. Not that any one of us would be such a charlatan.(Liszt would probably have loved it).
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2004-02-03 00:11
I can't give the exact tempo that I play it at, but I feel that it should be fast enough to be allegro, but not so fast that you lose all the expression and it just sounds like a rushed bunch of notes.
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-02-03 00:17
I'm going to ask the same question as W the Q, how do you slow a piece down and not make it flat. I want that software, one could make a killing selling it to high school students creating college entrance audition tapes.
I'm happy with a Rondo at 65. Trying to play a 100 year old Buffet A is enough of a challenge at that speed. Now if I speeded it up would the flat notes become in tune? But then I would be faced with what to do with in tune notes. This is all too much for my old alcohol soaked brain.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2004-02-03 04:34
Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) Software can alter tempo without changing pitch and alter pitch without changing tempo. It also allows virtually undetectable cut-and-paste. The problem with using something like this for audition recordings is that when a student who has doctored a tape eventually has to play live, e.g., in a lesson, the fact that s/he cheated on the audition tape will be painfully obvious and have predictably negative consequences for the student's future at the university and career.
Best regards,
jnk
Post Edited (2004-02-03 13:39)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-02-03 14:54
swk -
Josef Marx told me a story about James Galway, who came to New York just after his first record was issued, including a "breathless" Paganini Moto Perpetuo. Galway bragged that there were over 200 splices in the two-minute track.
Josef and I agreed that the only result was that, at least for wind players, you turned purple and nearly suffocated listening to it.
If the clarinet recording you mention is by Robert Spring, I can tell you, from having heard him personally, that his circular breathing is undetectable. Charles Neidich can do the same thing.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2004-02-12 23:26
I just got back from my once in while lesson and that Bellison arrangement is FULL of wrong notes. My teacher and I spent at least 30 minutes going over different arrangements trying to figure out what exactly was wrong. I'm going out and buy a new copy tomorrow, this time with piano for A clarinet. Any suggestions on which arrangement currently in print I should buy?
BTW, I did the Rondo at 70 which I figure is OK for someone who started back up last Oct. 28 after a 40 year hiatus.
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Author: Lisa
Date: 2004-02-14 03:47
Congratulations on picking up your instrument seriously again, Bill!
I agree that the Carl Fischer edition isn't your best bet, but it was the one that I first used when I was learning it, since that's what was required at that festival. I remember specifically setting my metronome to somewhere around 80 after I finally was able to handle it at a slower learning speed.
I have a question for anybody who can answer. Is the reason for splicing together so many takes (like Galway example) solely for the purpose of editing out breaths??? You've got to be kidding me! I'm sorry, but as a professional musician who makes a living doing something other than music, I don't understand why anyone would go to that much trouble, with all the takes and endless hours in the editing room. People breathe. Why is that so distracting to hear on an instrumental recording? (Vocalists don't do something similar, do they now?)
Please enlighten me!
Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!
Post Edited (2004-02-17 14:31)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-15 17:23
Find out the meaning of Rondo in 1791. Add the meaning of Mozart to that and there you have the tempo.
Alphie
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Author: Lisa
Date: 2004-02-15 18:23
Alphie said: Find out the meaning of Rondo in 1791. Add the meaning of Mozart to that and there you have the tempo.
OK, I'm confused. "Rondo" is a FORM, not tempo right? Even in Mozart's day??? The theme at the beginning of a rondo is repeated throughout---isn't that right??? I didn't think that had anything to do with tempo. Please enlighten me!
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Author: Dee
Date: 2004-02-15 21:59
Rondo is indeed a form.
Allegro is a tempo. The translation is "lively". If it sounds lively, then you are playing it correctly. If it sounds either slow or fast, then it is incorrect.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-02-15 22:30
The Rondo form was used frequently as the final movement of Classical era sonatas, concertos and symphonies. Its purpose was to conclude a work in a joyful or playful manner...GBK
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-15 23:14
Lisa,
I don't mean tempo. Don't get stuck in theory. Study the form, but try to understand what it means and what the form is trying to tell you. Start with the Rondeau from French baroque and Concerto Grosso and follow the development into the classical style. Just to understand how and when it’s used.
The Rondeau had the A theme repeated more times than in the classical style where the repeated episodes are limited to three, occasionally four.
The classical Rondo is in sonata form where the first A B A episodes are the exposition. The long C episode equals the development before the return to A B1 being the recapitulation and after that a coda.
Typical for the Rondo is that it's eagerly trying to tell you something time and time again. In the Rondo of the Mozart clarinet concerto there are long conversations between the soloist and the orchestra, like if the soloist is trying to debate what the issue in the theme is. It is dark and lively at the same time, just as the adagio movement before is light and sad. The contrasts are very apparent but the emotional effect on the listener is almost the same. This emotional state runs through the first movement as well. This is genius.
When Mozart wrote his last concerto he became aware of the fact that he was very sick and was soon going to die. This rondo implies that he’s slowly becoming reconciled with his destiny and in the serene coda he finishes with a fanfare to salute life. This interpretation I want to keep in mind myself.
Robins Landon has written: “There are times when an unbearable sadness seems to linger in the music, the more profound and tragic because it smilingly emerges from the serenity of a bright major key”.
Another time he quotes Shakespeare to describe this paradox: “The heart dances, but not for joy”.
The tempo is indeed in here. Just open your heart.
Alphie
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-16 23:11
I said it was an interpretation. It’s based on an essay I read about the work where the author writes: “The ear marvels, but only the heart can understand the deeper message of this miraculous work. Its quiet resignation has often been noted, perhaps suggesting that when writing it Mozart understood the extent of his own illness. The poignancy of the slow movement is evidence enough of this, but a hidden sorrow pervades the movements that flank it, as well”. I like this and I have it as my inspiration.
Fact is that he was very ill during this period. Niemetscheck, in his biography from 1798 based on interviews with Constanze writes about Mozart in Prague, where he was from Aug. 28 to the middle of September 1791 for the premier of La Clemenza di Tito together with Anton Stadler: he “was sickening and taking medicine incessantly, his colour was pale and his countenance sad”.
The Novello couple wrote after Constanze in 1829 that Mozart declared to his wife that he believed that he had been poisoned. “He felt a great pain in his loins and a languor spreading over him by degrees”. This event took place either in May/June or the end of October 1791. The Concerto was finished in October 1791.
What I mean is that information like this takes you closer to a piece of music. It serves as inspiration and understanding of phrasing….many other things…..and choice of tempo. Tempo is not only numbers on a metronome. It’s good for practicing but for everything else tempo is relative. It all has to do with your approach to the music.
For people who don’t think this is important the Rondo is marked Allegro in most editions.
Alphie
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-16 23:54
This is what I wrote:
"This rondo implies that he’s slowly becoming reconciled with his destiny and in the serene coda he finishes with a fanfare to salute life. This interpretation I want to keep in mind myself".
I'm telling you that this part is an interpretation. I never presented this part as facts. What's your problem?
The author doesn't present it as being facts either, he writes: "perhaps suggesting that when writing it Mozart understood the extent of his own illness". It's an essay with his own reflections about the piece.
The rest are facts as well as we know them. Exactly what is it that you're having problems with SWK?
Post Edited (2004-02-17 00:37)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-02-17 11:06
His final illness came indeed quite suddenly. Since you're asking for reliable sources all the time, Nissen writes: “His final illness in which he became confined to bed, lasted 15 days”. He was diagnosed having “heated military fever”.
For how much longer do we have to split hairs?
"When Mozart wrote his last concerto he became aware of the fact that he was very sick and was soon going to die"(?)
Facts are that he was very sick and felt very sick. He also believed in October 1791, the same month he finished the concerto that he had been poisoned. I didn’t say that he knew that he was going to die but if you want to call it conjecture, be my guest. And I don’t believe that he in this piece deliberately was portending his own death. Draw your own conclusions if you want.
But you’re missing my point and the origin of this thread by splitting all these hairs: By finding out the state of mind of a master like Mozart for the period when he wrote this masterpiece brings you closer to the work itself. If you feel some kind of empathy it can serve as a source for inspiration and understanding of how to interpret the music, and choice of tempo.
Never argue with a sceptic, you straighten one issue out and they’ll bend another one for you.
Post Edited (2004-02-17 12:26)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-02-17 14:25
Alphie -
I feel a great emotional density in the slow movement, but the finale has always seemed joyful to me. Mozart wrote "serious" minor key works when nothing in particular was happening in his life, and wrote perky, bubbling works at the same times his parents died. Record jacket commentators say he did this to assuage his pain, but I think it's a mistake to try to hear life events reflected in his music. That can be used to "prove" anything -- sad music shows he was affected. Happy music shows he shrugged it off.
There's great energy as well as great joy in the finale, and I suppose it's possible to find underlying tragedy, but this is Mozart at his greatest, and it can be understood in many ways.
Is there a recording where you find the sense of resignation in the slow movement, or approaching death in the finale? If I'm missing something, I'd like to find out. It's a very interesting idea.
Let's think about this some more.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-17 15:29
Part of the genius of great art is in its ability to transcend the emotional state of the artist and speak to observers on its own merit. Certainly from a historical and musicological perspective it is illuminating to have some sense of Mozart's state of mind, but I fail to see how that weighs on performance practice? What does awareness of his mental state, factual or not, provide that augments what is in the score or what has been passed down through the generations in performance tradition?
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