 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Keil
Date: 2000-04-28 01:36
however you spell it, i'm not sure, but newayzzz, i was listening to the NY phil play it today on the radio and i'm wondering if anyone has played it, it is so beautiful! My friend at the Governor's School played 2nd Clarinet on it and at that time i wasn't fully award of its beauty. After having heard it in its entirety i would have to say that this piece is absolutely gorgeous! the woodwind passages in it are beautiful as well as the Brass entrances! If you haven't heard it, you have to hear it! Tell me what you think.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-04-28 01:52
Keil,
The clarinet passage is very, very well known. It's a scmaltzy, romantic classic (on par with Tschaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet) and one of my favorites in that genre. I like Muti & the Philadelphia Orch. rendition best (really, really schmaltzy solo violin, drags out every bit of swell & dynamic possible).
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-04-28 01:54
Jim Pyne - if you're reading this, how about a story or two about principal clarinetists who keep going a bit longer on that clarinet solo than written :^)
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2000-04-28 02:28
Scheherazade is one of the standard excerpts for the clarinet. It is indeed a very awesome piece. I have an old recording of Bernstein/NYPhil. Every orchestra I have auditioned for has asked me to play the excerpts. Even when I was doing college auditions a couple of years back some of the bigger schools had me play it. Learn the solos. You will need them when you audition.
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Author: Keil
Date: 2000-04-28 02:32
That is the version i heard! Bernstein/NY phil. Thank You for the spelling correction and clarificaton! I'm guessing that the solos are cadenzas or under a fermata so that it will be somewhat improvised?
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-04-28 02:39
Keil wrote:
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I'm guessing that the solos are cadenzas or under a fermata so that it will be somewhat improvised?
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Nope - it's completely written out. Some clarinetists take liberties with it, though.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-04-28 02:42
Keil wrote:
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I'm guessing that the solos are cadenzas or under a fermata so that it will be somewhat improvised?
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Go through the Klarinet archives someday & look for "leeson cadenza" to learn the what and where of a cadenza and eingang. Thay're probably not exactly what you think they are - there's specific places for them (it depends on the specific inversion of a chord). They're a way for music to get from one place to another.
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2000-04-28 03:41
Your fingers move so fast playing one of them that I guarentee that it is easy to improvise! One section is under fermata, while the other is a cadenza. The first one has ad lib written above it in my part. That is the one in the second mvt. In the third mvt. comes the cadenza.
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2000-04-28 15:43
Keil wrote:
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however you spell it, i'm not sure, but newayzzz, i was listening to the NY phil play it today on the radio and i'm wondering if anyone has played it, it is so beautiful! My friend at the Governor's School played 2nd Clarinet on it and at that time i wasn't fully award of its beauty. After having heard it in its entirety i would have to say that this piece is absolutely gorgeous! the woodwind passages in it are beautiful as well as the Brass entrances! If you haven't heard it, you have to hear it! Tell me what you think.
Keil -
Sheherazade is one of the great fun pieces to play and to listen to. Lots of pretentious people look down their noses at it, on the assumption that nothing immediately attractive can have deeper merit. They're wrong, of course.
The piece tells the story of Sheherazade, who was forcibly married to Sultan Shariar. He had a new wife every day and killed her the next morning. Sheherazade saved her life by inventing a new story each night, leaving it hanging (like a movie serial), so the Sultan had to keep her alive to find out what happened next. She did this for 1,001 nights, creating the "Arabian Nights" or "Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor."
Rimsky-Korsakov paints some very specific musical pictures. At the opening, the murderous sultan appears with brutal chords in the brass. Sheherazade answers as a soothing solo violin, and it goes on from there.
There are two groups of clarinet solos. The first group is three short cadenzas, made up of rapid triplets above the staff. Usually, these are started slowly and then speed up to as fast as possible. The third one has some tricky changes. I don't have the score in front of me, and I don't remember what these solos represent, but it's something threatening and exciting. The bassoon also has similar cadenza solos, so you have to get together to work out how you can both play them with the same character.
The second set of solos is in the section "Sinbad and His Ship" and consists of a low A, followed by a rapid scale up to G on top of the staff and then back down, and then a bar later the same pattern going up to second ledger line C and down. It's tempting to sweep up, pause at the top, and then sweep back down. However, the music represents giant waves breaking over Sinbad's ship. Some versions say the ship rolls completely over. Therefore, the musical gesture is like a wave, going up and down as a single, continuous motion. These are not cadenzas, but a pair of gigantic "swooshes."
The most often recommended recording is Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic (or possibly the Royal Philharmonic). Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra also made a great recording in the early 60s.
It's a great piece. Lots of fun to play.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: bill
Date: 2000-04-28 20:33
Yes, I've played it with an orchestra and it was a really nice piece. I've also played a simplified version of it for clarinet with piano accomp. it was nice-sounding there too. Have you heard the CD with the Isreal Philharmonic Orchestra? That's one of the better CD's i've listened to.
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Author: Shane Livingston
Date: 2000-05-04 23:30
The best clarinet soloist on Scheherazade is D. Bonade. He was the teacher of Robert Marcellus!!! I also love the piece!!!
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