 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: george
Date: 2005-09-16 03:57
Attachment: sch.jpg (58k)
How does one finger this excert from the Schumann Fantasy Piece #3 - for Bb clarinet? I have tried the forked fingering --first two fingers of each hand--for the G# and it sounds terrible on both of my clarinets.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-09-16 04:18
The Schumann Fantasy Pieces are for clarinet in A.
#1 is often transposed and played on Bb clarinet to avoid some of the awkward slurred intervals, but #2 and #3 should be performed on the A clarinet which will put the music in a more finger friendly key.
If you have no choice and must play #3 on the standard 17/6 Bb clarinet (because having an alternate LH Eb key will solve the problem you are asking about) then your only choice is to do a "re-take"
Play the C#5 with the right pinky and then quickly switch pinkys and "re-take" the C#5 with the left pinky so the D#5 can be played with the right pinky...GBK
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-09-16 09:31
many years ago i was page turner for a young clarinet player performing this for (what was then) NZs biggest music competition...
a member of the judging panel (an ex-pat pommie) anounced (at the end of that round) that the performer in question had played the Fantasy Pieces on the "wrong clarinet", and that even though it was written for A clarinet, it was much better to play it on B flat!
that person has over the years been very influential in NZ music, both as a highly paid administrator and as a 3rd rate conductor (at the dress rehearsal for an opera, the lead role asked him publicly to "stop waving his arms around as though he was having a seizure").
rather depressingly, this ignorant upper class twit with a posh accent has spent years contributing to the mediocrity that plagues our country. If he'd stayed in the UK he probably would be writing for Gramaphone.
donald
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-16 10:15
You have to play this sequence on the Bb clarinet though -- minus the first and last notes, and with A natural for A# -- as a little interjection in the 6/8 section of the last movement of Tchaikowsky's First Piano Concerto. It's also quite a lot faster, so the 'retake' solution is almost ruled out.
On a standard clarinet without the alternative D#, the G# fork you mention can be much more effective than it appears to be at first (the fingering was of course forced in any case on 5-key clarinets). As you say, it's first two fingers LH, first two fingers RH, perhaps with some optional little finger key depending on the acoustics of your instrument.
It does take some practice to find the tongue position required to voice this note effectively. It's also worth realising that extra support is what you need to match note intensity into and out of the fork G# -- remember, without 'seeming to do anything'.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-09-16 17:11
It's a tossup whether to play #1 on A or Bb. The "bell" quality on the middle B at the end of the first phrase is no bargain on the A clarinet, and it's not too difficult to use the trill key for Bb on the Bb clarinet. Also, remember that the final note is a resolution of the preceding appoggiatura and is thus not emphasized.
Personally, I think it's worth transposing #1, to avoid the slur up to altissimo C#. Most Bb instruments make the octave slur up to altissimo Eb using the right ring finger pretty well in tune, and it's possible (because I do it) to learn to slide your right ring finger up to the sliver key for the standard fingering. There's nothing immoral about sliding. Watch a bassoonist sometime, not to mention the violinists.
Kell had an incredibly even scale, so it's hard to tell, but I believe that on his Decca LP recording plays the entire set on the Bb.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-16 17:41
Ken Shaw wrote, in part:
>>Personally, I think it's worth transposing #1, to avoid the slur up to altissimo C#.>>
I don't really understand that, Ken. Or do you mean, the Db in bar 8?
>>Most Bb instruments make the octave slur up to altissimo Eb using the right ring finger pretty well in tune, and it's possible (because I do it) to learn to slide your right ring finger up to the sliver key for the standard fingering. There's nothing immoral about sliding.>>
I agree about sliding, but I'm still confused. Surely it's on the A clarinet that you slur to a high Eb -- on the Bb clarinet the highest note is a D.
Regardless of what Kell did, the pieces are particularly written for the A clarinet by the not negligible musician Schumann (an earlier draft has the last movement written in C), and certainly 'well playable' (as English kids now say) on the A clarinet; so I think it's pretty clear we should do that -- unless, of course, you don't have an A clarinet.
I use what might be called a 'non-standard' fingering for top Eb in the octave leap in #1, using the LH Ab key instead of the register key. Then you can use middle finger right hand and little finger Eb, and if that's too sharp, keep LH first finger closed as well. Other combinations are possible, and sometimes produce more stable notes than the standard fingerings.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-09-16 17:42)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-09-16 18:12
I will add an additional "non-standard" fingering choice for the top Eb in the octave leap in piece #1 to the ones already offered by Ken and Tony.
Play a standard D6 fingering and add the throat Ab key.
TR + Ab key oxx / xoo Eb/Ab
The advantage of this fingering (only if the tuning is precise on your set-up) is that there is minimum finger movement which, with practice, can be easily mastered...GBK
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Author: vin
Date: 2005-09-16 20:06
Now that I have Tony and GBK in the same place, I have a question. I have heard from several people over the years, cellists and clarinets, that there were attaca marks in between all of the movements originally. Have any of you heard of this? I've tried it, and while tiring, it gives a great sense of building from the first piece to the end. This would obviously rule out changing clarinets, too (which doesn't make much sense anyway).
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Author: redwine
Date: 2005-09-16 20:22
Hello,
For what it's worth, I played this piece recently in recital and switched instruments. The audience didn't mind and it certainly makes the technique easier on the b-flat clarinet. I can think of many times to transpose to make things easier/better--Peter and the Wolf, Brahms Symphony (I can't remember which one that I transposed quite a bit now, but it was a lot easier).
Ben Redwine, DMA
owner, RJ Music Group
Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America
Selmer Paris artist
www.rjmusicgroup.com
www.redwinejazz.com
www.reedwizard.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-09-16 20:34
Tony -
Many thanks for the corrections. My brain wasn't engaged this morning.
More, please, on why the pieces are less suitable for the Bb clarinet than for the A.
Is it perhaps that the somewhat darker color of the instrument fits the emotional content of the music?
Does it seem to you that Schumann wrote to take advantage of the tone colors of particular notes? That is, did he put musically/harmonically important things on the instrument's most resonant notes, and less important things on less resonant notes?
I assume you have played the pieces on a period clarinet, or a copy of one. How was your playing different from when you used a modern clarinet?
What would you say to a modern player to help a performance match what "comes naturally" on an old instrument. (For example, at an organ master class with Andre Marchal, he noted that the organ a particular piece was written for had a very efficient swell box, and performers on other organs had to thin out the registration as well as close the swell box during soft passages.)
It seems to me that Schumann expresses much stronger emotions than most clarinetists manage, particularly in #1. The Casals performance on cello captures this for me. Are you familiar with it, and if so, what do you think?
Ken Shaw
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Author: vin
Date: 2005-09-17 04:13
Ben- I agree that transposing can help often. I transpose Brahms 1 and Brahms 3 opening and second movement. The Fantasy Pieces, with or without the attaca marking, to me seem to build into one another and so I like to go headfirst in to both the second and third and changing clarinets seems to break that up.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-09-17 04:36
vin -
I like a complete pause after the 1st Fantasy Piece, but prefer to play (and hear) the 2nd Fantasy Piece with an attaca at the end...GBK
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-17 10:52
Ken Shaw wrote: >> More, please, on why the pieces are less suitable for the Bb clarinet than for the A.>>
It's just that Schumann wrote it for the A clarinet, and I can't really see any reason not to do what he asked. The piece falls in Cmajor/minor on the A, and Bmajor/minor on the Bb, and though you might think, say, the Fmajor bit in the second one might be preferable in Gmajor on the Bb instead of Abmajor on the A, something of that sort comes up whatever you do.
>> Is it perhaps that the somewhat darker color of the instrument fits the emotional content of the music? Does it seem to you that Schumann wrote to take advantage of the tone colors of particular notes? That is, did he put musically/harmonically important things on the instrument's most resonant notes, and less important things on less resonant notes?>>
I don't find much evidence of that, I have to say, though Cmajor/minor is more of a 'natural' clarinet key than Bmajor/minor.
Another argument is that the A clarinet does have a slightly different nature from the Bb, and I feel I want to make the effort to be at home with it. There is more solo music written for the Bb, so we play the A clarinet less. Playing these pieces on the Bb just makes the matter worse.
Schumann was more fastidious about how his music was played than some people think. For example, he objected to the Romances for Oboe being published for clarinet. See:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2002/06/000766.txt
>> I assume you have played the pieces on a period clarinet, or a copy of one. How was your playing different from when you used a modern clarinet?>>
How I tried to play wasn't significantly different, I'd say, though the results were different. The greater focus of the older instruments (you have to include the huge change in the nature of the piano) helped the clarity of the whole thing, and allowed greater variety in some ways.
For example, very few modern performances show the change in #1 between the first ten bars and what comes afterwards. In the first ten bars, the clarinet keeps starting higher up in order to fall by step in a lamenting sort of way; the piano has resonant octaves below falling, lamenting triplets.
The next bit might be said to represent 'hope' -- the clarinet tries to go *up* by step, the triplets in the piano go up instead of down, the bass octaves go away.
Those differences show up more -- or can be made to show up more -- on an earlier piano, because the bass octaves have a different sound quality, and you can get a very delicate touch on the thirds that replace them.
>> What would you say to a modern player to help a performance match what "comes naturally" on an old instrument?>>
Things like the above. There's a lot to say about these pieces, actually. I always spend about three hours on them in a class, because I think they're one of our masterpieces.
You mention the Casals recording, which I haven't heard. I should get hold of it.
I have to say that mostly, I find modern 'cellists approach these pieces very unthinkingly. For example, they don't notice that the beginning of #1 is a sequence of falling phrases, because they're too interested in their upward swoops, and their supposedly wonderful sound. This means they often overplay it, and destroy its sad/hopeful/loving/desperate/tragic/accepting cycle.
Actually, if you think of the Fantasiestuecke as related to each other, then it's clear that they inhabit different 'registers', like the Stravinsky Three Pieces. The first is personal and intimate, speaking of someone's inner life; the second is narrative -- so that we can be talking at one moment about the princess and the next about the giant, which you can't do in the register of the first, where 'hope' needs some time to dawn on the person; and the last is personal, but outward, and action based.
Vin asked about attaccas. I don't know about this, but I do know that in the so-called 'Soire'estuecke' (soire' about the accent:-), which are an earlier version of the Fantasiestuecke, the two last chords of #2 are omitted, with the suggestion of an even more radical attacca to #3. I sometimes persuade the pianist to do that, even in the later version.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-09-17 23:08)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-17 14:50
I just found the Henle Urtext (absolutely outstanding value as usual for this edition, around UKP8), derived principally from Schumann's personal MS, which has 'attacca' at the end of both #1 and #2.
Tony
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-09-17 22:27
kia ora
thank you Mr Pay for an edifying posting! it's nice when someone not only confirms your own opinions (as you did) but adds things that set you to thinking, and remind one of the virtue of humility (i've just finished reading a novel set in edwardian times and my language is temporarily corrupted!)
meanwhile- i'd say my posting earlier was a little to acidic, and by no means has done me proud.... ignorant people in positions of power offend my sense of justice, but grumbling about it doesn't help.
keep playing the good tunes
donald
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2005-09-19 22:04
I absolutely wouldn't play it on the Bb Clarinet for any of the movements.
But I have had kids who played the 1st one on Bb.
As for that passage, I'd just slide from the G# to the C# both with the left pinky - and it would be smooth (if I were stuck playing it on the Bb).
But I still don't think that it should be played on the Bb as it looses the character of the piece with it. Theres a lot to be said for the timbre of the fingerings vs. pitch.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-19 23:14
David Blumberg wrote: >> As for that passage, I'd just slide from the G# to the C# both with the left pinky - and it would be smooth (if I were stuck playing it on the Bb).>>
If you can do that, I suggest that 'sliding' isn't quite the right word.
I find that I can do it if twist my LH and then hit the C# with my 2nd knuckle by a further tilt of my little finger that releases the G#.
It's worthwhile being open to such experiments. But to make this particular solution secure, and to make it secure under pressure, would probably require quite a bit of practice.
Tony
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