 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: noahbob
Date: 2005-10-08 22:11
If you were to rate the difficulty of the Brahms clarinet sonata in f minor on a scale of 1-10 [1 being the lowest 10 being the highest] how would you rate it? The reason I'm asking this is because there is a fellow clarinet player in my class who has only playing for 2 years and he think this piece looks easy and he could learn in an instant. Personaly I believe the kid is overstepping his boundaries, his tone is mediocre, he doesn't know all of his major scales by memory and he doesn't know the chromatic scale. I have heard this piece many times and it does sound difficult, but I would like a proffesional oppinion.
Thanks
Noah
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-10-08 22:29
i agree with your comments (though i haven't heard your fellow student, i've seen this exact situation many times)
but my advice?
don't worry about it. forget it. He's not your student, right? so just get on with your own thing. i know that this kind of situation is/can be frustruating and annoying but you'll do much better just focussing on your own business.
there's nothing more annoying than to hear people clap after some doofus has just butchered a great masterpiece, but there's also nothing that we can do about it.
i spent too many years, and too much energy, on this kind of stuff.
keep playing the good tunes
donald
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Author: noahbob
Date: 2005-10-08 23:05
That was very good advice thank you donald, I agree totaly.
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Author: theclarinetist
Date: 2005-10-09 02:04
and if it makes you feel any better, people who do that kind of stuff usually get put in their place in the end. I've noticed from many of my life experiences (musical, academic, etc), that the people who are the surest that they know everything are usually the ones who don't know much at all. In fact, it's an old cliche, but it's proved true for me... the more you learn, the more you realize that you DON'T know, and the humbler you tend to get. I used to be one of those "I can learn that in 5 seconds..." kind of people, but as I've become a pretty good clarinetist, I've become much less sure of my abilities. It's not that I think I'm not good now, but as my standards of what constitutes good playing have changed, I've become more critical and aware of the many small nuances and details that I still need to improve (where as before I was quite pleased just to slop my way through the notes). Hopefully, this will happen for your colleague...
As far as the actual piece is concerned, I would probably rate it about an 8 or 9... The Brahms Sonatas are incredibly difficult to play, despite their seemingly low technical demands. In fact I've performed many more difficult pieces than the Brahms (Grand Duo, Bucolique, Premiere Rhapsody to name a few that are particularly difficult), but of all those pieces I've played, the Brahms Fm has been the one with which I'm always the least satisfied (and I played it well). In Brahms every measure (heck, practically every beat) has something that needs to be done to it about and beyond playing the notes to make it work. It's not the kind of music you can just play...
In fact, as a side note, I'd like to know if anyone has actually performed a Brahms Sonata to their satisfaction? I'm not insuating that there aren't people who can, but I think that if you fully understand the pieces, it's probably almost impossible to play so well that it completely meets your expectations of the pieces potential (I often feel this way about the Mozart also)... Just an interesting question, if anyone wants to chime in...
Donald Hite
theclarinetist@yahoo.com
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-09 05:15
Two comments:
1.)
The Brahms sonata(s) are duets, really with an exquisite and challenging piano part. A clarinetist can not play them alone s/he must have a great rapport with the piano co-performer.
2.)
A young colleague of mine attempted to work up one of the sonatas last year for a competition. When she told me she was finding it challenging, I dragged out my music and the Stoltzman recordings. That's when I realized that it is the musicianship more than the technique that determines the success of a performance of these pieces.
With her high school music teacher, the three of us chose a more accessible concerto -- a piece that did not require hours of rehearsal for her pianist.
Personally, I might spend several hours over a couple of days playing along with a recording --just for drill and to study the (real) performers interpretation. But, I won't seriously attempt to perform them until I have a really good and understanding partner on the keyboard.
Bob Phillips
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Author: BobD
Date: 2005-10-09 13:16
"I'd like to know if anyone has actually performed a Brahms Sonata to their satisfaction? "
Yes, I have, on a number of occasions....and the audience of one also enjoyed it.
Bob Draznik
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Author: CPW
Date: 2005-10-09 15:54
Someone once remarked that you can not play it unless you are old enough to have loved and lost.
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Author: noahbob
Date: 2005-10-09 16:00
Just to add this year I am playing the weber concerto in f minor, how would you compare this piece difficulty wise to the sonata? Just out of curiosity.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2005-10-09 16:36
I had an enjoyable experience with Brahms Fm in college thanks less to my own performance than to that of my classmate who played piano. He would do anything with the piece that you asked of him, and then played it as if he composed the piece himself. This is one nice thing about the college experience--plenty of rehearsal with your accompanist. It is so much more pleasant to play a piece like the Brahms when you have enough rehearsal to really absorb how the pianist is approaching it.
I'm getting ready to revisit the Weber Fm myself. Not sure how to rate it for difficulty, because it largely plays itself. What I really want to say about it is that it's one of the most truly entertaining clarinet pieces that I can think of--particularly in the first movement. I always had the fantasy of playing it with a patchwork of scenes from silent films being projected.
Allen Cole
Post Edited (2005-10-09 16:37)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-10-10 03:19
Comparing Brahms sonatas to Weber concerti is like comparing apples to hippopotamus teeth.
Really, though, they are differently hard. The Webers require a lot more calm finger-chops, while the Brahmses demand a good dose of finesse. The high E in the first phrase of Brahms 1 is one of the more dangerous notes of the standard clarinet repertoire, especially in untrained hands.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-10-10 03:36
EEBaum wrote:
> The high E in the first phrase of Brahms 1 ....
High Eb ...GBK
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Author: OpusII
Date: 2005-10-10 11:12
Quote:
The high E in the first phrase of Brahms 1 is one of the more dangerous notes of the standard clarinet repertoire, especially in untrained hands.
I wonder how it would sound if a professional would play the High E ![[hot]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/hot.gif)
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Author: missclarinetist
Date: 2005-10-10 16:24
Not an easy piece. I agree with you that a beginner starting out on a clarinet of two years playing experience could not possibly play the Brahms sonata exceptionally well. I have performed the Brahms Clarinet sonota in Eb my freshmen year at college. I had eight years of clarinet experience that year I actually performed the piece in my Performance Hour class. From what I heard, people I know in my audience enjoyed it but it was a tough piece to perform. It wasn't an easy piece for both the clarinet and pianist to work on as me and my accompanist met almost every other night during the week. The accompaniment part had a difficult part as well as the clarinet. It took me a whole summer to actually play the piece well and to practice with several accompanists. As I learn new pieces, I would actually hear a recording of it in order to get ideas for the piece I'm working on. Most people would think they have the talent to play, but they forget about all the musical aspects of the piece which takes time and practice to learn and mature in your musicianship and their playing experience.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-10-10 16:57
Your friend (?) probably won't perform the Brahms very well, but there's nothing wrong with trying. I got a copy when I had been playing only 3 years and played along (very badly) with the Kell recording.
All clarinetists should know the Brahms Sonatas, and the sooner the better. They're music you work on all your life.
Why should intermediate players avoid great music? It's fun to play mid-level band stuff, but you'll be better off by getting to know the masterpieces. At this point, it hardly matters how well you play them. Your mother will still love it. More important, you'll learn to love it, and be nourished by it.
Ken Shaw
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Author: GoatTnder
Date: 2005-10-10 17:25
>I'd like to know if anyone has actually performed a Brahms Sonata to their
>satisfaction?
Last year, I performed the 3rd and 4th movements of the 1st Sonata (I was only allowed 8 minutes, I took 9-ish). Aside from a small technical flub early in the 4th (I'm sure anyone who's played it can guess where), it was one of the moments I'm most proud of. At the time, my accompanist and I had met weekly for going on 10 weeks, which certainly helped.
Andres Cabrera
South Bay Wind Ensemble
sbwe@sbmusic.org
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-10-10 18:32
Ken Shaw wrote, in part:
>> I got a copy [of the Brahms Sonatas] when I had been playing only 3 years and played along (very badly) with the Kell recording.>>
Me too. Only, my 'unison' performance was one with a clarinet player called Antoine de Bavier. (I did play along with Kell in the Mozart, though.)
I don't know why more people don't do this sort of thing.
>> ...you'll be better off by getting to know the masterpieces. At this point, it hardly matters how well you play them. Your mother will still love it. More important, you'll learn to love it, and be nourished by it.>>
I totally agree. See:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2005/08/000322.txt
Tony
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2008-10-17 03:04
So now that I'm dusting this piece off after 33 years and a LOT of convincing by our Trio's pianist...
Any suggestions for bar 8, to play the transition between the C and the high Eb more smoothly?
I completely agree with the comments above about how one must have a measure of maturity before having success in playing this piece. One needs to have loved and lost, triumphed and met tragedy face to face in order to understand how to paint the hues of the music. Life can leave one pretty bruised but this experience can be turned to an advantage to touch hearts. This is not music to be played by the metronome, as I played it in high school for a competition. Neither is it to be played too long with Smart Music, since the subtle changes in pace and intensity cannot come from the heart. I can now sense the unwritten pushes and pulls in the Harold Wright recording (and others) of this piece, and after having played it off and on for the last few months I feel that it's becoming my own conversation with my listeners.
I'm still not a fan of the 1st movement but at least have an insight into how Brahms was expressing inner feelings. The 2nd to 4th movements are fast becoming favourites of mine, and each performance is coming more and more from the heart.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-10-17 03:12
Brenda wrote:
> Any suggestions for bar 8, to play the transition between the C
> and the high Eb more smoothly?
Play the C5 using the left pinky.
Then, play the Eb6:
TR o x x / o o x (Eb/Ab)
or
R (no thumb) x x x / o o x (Eb/Ab)
...GBK
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Author: weberfan
Date: 2008-10-17 05:16
Noahbob...
Re: your classmate.
As I recall, it was Stanley Hasty, in a moment of pique, who told a stubborn high school student that she should not play Brahms for a contest she insisted on entering: "You can play the notes,'' he said, "but you can't play Brahms.''
As to Ken Shaw's reminiscence on playing along with Reginald Kell: I thought that sort of thing was just my guilty pleasure. I play along, as best I can, with Kell and Wright. And I recently bought a book with some Mozart, Brahms and Schumann. I can play the notes, but...
And yet, there are few more exhilarating moments in music than playing those notes.
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2008-10-17 07:55
GBK's first suggestion for the E flat has the advantage that it then makes it easy to get down to the following F sharp which you can also play with the e flat/ a flat RH little finger key, if you see what I mean.
Incidentally, I go along with someone's comment about it being music for those who have loved and lost. To me, the more serious moments of all the Brahms works are the most genuinely heartfelt of all the clarinet repertoire. Compared to the almost mock-seriousness of, say, the Weber second movements, not to say that they don't also have their worth or their meaning, the Brahms works go far deeper. I'd say that the other pieces are for when your pet hamster dies whereas the Brahms works are for when your lover dies.
Vanessa.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2008-10-17 16:06
i took a master class from Janette Jonquil on the Brahms, and used GBK's fingering suggestion. Of course, the high Eb stood out like a siren in a church.
She told me that she'll do ANYTHING to get her fingers to the standard sliver key fingering for the Eb --to assure that it will be in tune and have a balanced tone.
After a couple years messing about, I'm back to the third finger option, but with really careful attention to air support in the transition. Really, it took me weeks to get that to come out fluently.
(also, per Jonquil, if the darn thing sticks out pretend that you meant to to do that and follow with a bit of crescendo.)
Oh, and I'm still training my pianist.
Bob Phillips
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-10-17 17:05
Tony wrote:
<<Me too. Only, my 'unison' performance was one with a clarinet player called Antoine de Bavier. (I did play along with Kell in the Mozart, though.)
I don't know why more people don't do this sort of thing.>>
I used to do that sort of thing, too. Funny story...I guess I was about 12 or 13 at the time (junior high, anyway). My teacher and I had been working on the Rondo from the Mozart Concerto. So one day I decided to try playing along with my recording (Jost Michaels), only to discover that the recording was a 1/2 step flat! So when I went to my next lesson I made sure to complain to my teacher about how flat the lousy recording was! That's when I learned about clarinets in A. (you see, even my sheet music said "Clarinet in Bb" because this edition had a transposed piano part)
When I got older and had plans of an orchestral career (before I chickened out part way through my senior year of high school and decided to go into engineering), my teacher gave me a box of old orchestral parts, which I used to play along with the stereo. That was a lot of fun, and I greatly admire my parents for tolerating my numerous repetitions of the "Peasant with Bear" solo from Petrushka (played ff, of course).
Actually, come to think of it, Tony and I played Weber together a few times in those days, too. Or at least we tried. He was such a show-off...I could never get him or that "enlightened" orchestra of his to follow my tempo!  (no matter how many times I hit rewind)
Post Edited (2008-10-17 18:13)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-10-17 19:36
GBK's Eb fingering #1 is actually my preferred choice of Eb for most situations (including this one).
If the Eb sounds like it's popping out, it may actually be because the C that precedes it is too weak. It's tempting to make the C trail off in anticipation of the Eb because we're worried about the Eb popping out. What I try to do is put more energy into the C (make it a big fat Brahms C) and keep that energy going as I transition into the Eb. I actually think the C ought to played with a little bit of a crescendo. When you do this, the strong Eb doesn't seem overly strong any more. I know this all may sound counter-intuitive, but it does "work" (technically and musically)--at least for me it does.
To me, from a musical standpoint (technical considerations notwithstanding), that C needs to have some strength to it (not an accent--just a little more energy), and since it's kind of a stuffy note on the instrument to begin with, it probably needs a little more "oomph" to sound right, anyway. After all, it is written "poco forte" and "appassionato."
Post Edited (2008-10-17 19:37)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-10-17 20:11
In regards to the fingering for the high Eb -
I think that the first fingering I posted:
TR o x x / o o x (Eb/Ab)
is the most common solution to this passage.
Although, the second option:
R (no thumb) x x x / o o x (Eb/Ab)
could yield a smoother legato, since the first finger remains stationary.
However, I've never been brave enough to use it in a performance
...GBK
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-10-17 21:07
Good point, GBK. I'm a huge fan of those open-thumb-hole fingerings because they usually make slurs across the upper break much easier. There's actually another one for Eb that's supposed to be really good for big leaps, although it's quite a bit more awkward. (Ridenour says it's the best one for big leaps, although he recommends your above #1 option for this Brahms passage, which is what I would do, too. But who knows, somebody might find this fingering solves a problem or two in exchange for the awkwardness)
R (no thumb) (throat G# key) x x x / x o x (Eb/Ab)
If I get a grunt/wobble/blip/what-have-you in the middle of a slur across the upper break, open thumb fingerings are my remedy of choice! (By the way, if you take the G# key off of the fingering above you get a really useful D fingering.)
In response to noahbob's original post (I apologize that I'm sort of reading this thread backwards):
I played the 3rd mvt. of this piece (the Allegretto Grazioso) for S&E contest when I was 12 (= 3 years of experience, since I started at age 9) and won a 1st division rating. I hadn't learned all my scales by that point, either. So I know for a fact that it CAN be done, even if you're not Ricardo Morales. What I did have going for me, though, was a good tone and a good sense of phrasing and musicality (and a great teacher, of course). Also, I think the 3rd mvt. is probably the easiest of the four movements to play.
Do not be deceived, though--the other posters in this thread are absolutely right--Brahms' music is *almost always* harder than it looks. Brahms is *intellectually* challenging music, with complex rhythms and textures, complex musicality, awkward intervals, and slightly "modern" sounding harmonic progressions. Brahms is hard to play and even harder to sing (as I later found out when I competed in vocal solo & ensemble in high school). The genius of Brahms is that for all this complexity, Brahms is surprisingly easy to listen to and enjoy. (That being said, you do have to sort of "grow into" it to really appreciate it. The first half of the Copland Concerto is kind of like that, too.)
On top of that, the clarinet sonatas are complicated by the fact that the individual parts of the sonatas don't make much musical sense on their own--they only start sounding like music when you put the two parts together (which, of course, makes them hard to practice on your own). The Hindemith Sonata is like that, too (I played Hindemith the following year). If you enjoy playing Brahms, you might like Hindemith, too.
So bottom line is that while you don't necessarily have to be a "scale-meister" to play Brahms, don't be fooled--it's still harder than it looks.
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2008-10-18 02:47
I'm thoroughly enjoying the comments so far and am glad that I resurrected the thread from 2005 instead of starting a new one!
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Author: William
Date: 2008-10-18 15:58
the clarinetist wrote, "I'd like to know if anyone has actually performed a Brahms Sonata to their satisfaction? "
Thinking about that, I don't think I have ever performed anything *completely* to my satisfaction. Listening to playbacks or in retrospect, there is always that certain something that could have been played better, smoother or more muscially. But then, what a drearly world of music this would be if every performance was absolutely perfect with no possiblitly of interpretive variation or personal expression. Isn't it great that no one has the "correct" answer and that a whole world of musical possiblities remain undefined for the rest of us to explore. Bhrams high E?? I say go for it and enjoy, every time, the resulting nuance, however good or "not-so-good" it may be. Thankfully, there will always the next time to be better........or at least, different.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-10-18 17:59
>>Incidentally, I go along with someone's comment about it being music for those who have loved and lost. To me, the more serious moments of all the Brahms works are the most genuinely heartfelt of all the clarinet repertoire. Compared to the almost mock-seriousness of, say, the Weber second movements, not to say that they don't also have their worth or their meaning, the Brahms works go far deeper. I'd say that the other pieces are for when your pet hamster dies whereas the Brahms works are for when your lover dies.
>>
I agree that the music of Brahms is deep and endlessly fascinating, in addition to all its technical difficulties. But, the idea that people inexperienced in life aren't ready for Brahms yet gets it all backety-asswards. I'd argue instead that one of the best of the many ways in which young people can learn to cope with the lives they've already got, while preparing for the rest of their lives, is by learning the music of Brahms.
Ken Shaw wrote,
>All clarinetists should know the Brahms Sonatas, and the sooner the better. They're music you work on all your life.
>
Yes. Few outmoded ideas in the teaching profession irk me more than the dictum promulgated by my 6th grade teacher, Miss Hatton (aka Miss Gulch), in the academic year 1959-60, who wouldn't give the class creative writing assignments, because we "weren't ready to write yet." How do kids learn to write except by writing? How do they learn to make music except by making music? I'd give kids Brahms the minute they could play the notes! No, they won't play the notes well at first, but the way some of them will instinctively play the *music* might surprise the stuffy stuffing out of people who think one needs some sort of maturity credentials first.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Brenda ★2017
Date: 2008-10-19 01:09
Yes, I too agree that young ones should play all the masters, including Brahms. Just as young people should get married, should have children, see the stars and the sunsets, feel the breeze on their faces and attend school to become educated. But once we get older we appreciate these experiences oh so much more. That's why grandparents find out that they should have had grandchildren first, they're a lot more fun!
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