 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: vin
Date: 2006-04-27 18:34
I am currently working on the solos from Schubert Unfinished. In the small bit of Schubert that I have performed (Shepard of the Rock, the Octet and "the Great" Symphony), I have always been struck by his use of accents and how Schubert accents just seem different than anyone else's. Of course, every phrase mark and accent is in it's own unique context, but it seems to me that Schubert uses accents are often very gentle and are there simply to denote emphasis (in a soft voice, ar-TIC-ulation vs. AR-tic-ulation).
Does this make any sense to anyone else, I wonder?
Now, the accents in the first four bars (bars 2 and 4) of main solo of the Unfinshed Symphony are usually taught one of two ways: One, with absolutely no crescendo into the second and fourth bars and a distinct pulse on two and four; or Two, with a slight crescendo (or intensifying of sound) into the second and fourths. Now, I've heard several renowned orcehstral players talk about this excerpt and the suggestions have ranged from "You can't crescendo because it doesn't say so" to "Everybody in recordings crescendos a little bit" and "The accent should just be like you are playing with oboe legato and it should come out just right." I will say that I like Harold Wright's version the best of the ones I've heard, and he crescendos slightly, but I don't feel right (no pun intended) just copying him; I need some reasoning. I will say that when I try to sing it, it feels a bit unnatural to not give a slight crescendo at the very end of measures 1 and 3, but in some auditions, someone is likely to grouse about not following the score ( a valid concern). What does everybody think about this?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-04-27 19:59
I think this is about the deepest question I have ever seen posted on this list.
I don't have time to respond to it right now. But I do want to say that to answer it requires a discussion of, first, what is meant by 'a style'; second, what particular style Schubert's musical notation was assuming when he wrote the accents; and third, in what context you have to produce the solo today.
To dismiss the third discussion first: it doesn't particularly interest me to consider the current US audition stance. (Y'all will have to deal with that yourselves;-) So if you find you have to audition for some famous or influential person who has a particular axe to grind, you're best off choosing a way of satisfying them. Find out what they want before you play.
If however you are interested in the first two considerations, I do have something to say.
The background is the most important. You'll understand me better if you first read:
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/Phrasing.html
Later,
Tony
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2006-04-27 20:21
Thanks for this question, vin. In my thinking we must contrast between accent marks from, say, Beethoven, and Schubert. Certainly the current way of playing Schubert demands less of a "bump" and more of a graduated accent (which I guess includes at least a small creascendo)...........but I await Tony's ever thoughtful discussion to come.
One question, though. Do we know for sure that Schubert wrote that accent and not some later editor?
johng
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-04-27 20:29
Listen to your self play the passage. (record it)
I've been working on Crusell #2 and find that the accents marked in the score are excessive! A more gentle approach works much better. My teacher warned me, but I had to hear it for myself to really understand.
I'll defer to Tony Pay for placing the Schubert notation into its proper context, though, 'way up here we seldom 'yall.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2006-04-27 20:42
In the most general sense, I've always understood the markings specifically referred to in the 8th Symphony and other works from this period as espressivos rather than "accents". What kind of espressivos? Schubertian espressivos. Of course that topic is deliciously rich with possibilities considering the context in which those markings appear - both in the exact piece and within that period of music.
Gregory Smith
Post Edited (2006-04-27 20:45)
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Author: vin
Date: 2006-04-27 22:00
Tony-
Of course I am most interested in the first two issues and welcome any further thoughts you might have. As for auditions, I just want to be able to play it convincingly... and with a clean conscience.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2006-04-27 22:15
＞I have always been struck by his use of accents and how Schubert accents just seem different than anyone else's.
At a piano lesson on NHK(the Japanese national broadcoast) TV, Maria João Pires said a very interesting thing. It was like this:
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He suffered from inferiority complex and did not believe in his own talent although it was very evident to other people.His music shows his character.No decisiveness.Always hesitant.His accent is very difficult.Throw a something and you do not know on what place it will fall.It's like that.Tempo is another matter.It fluctuates. It's like you do not know where to go.
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I read somewhere that late Leonard Bernstein disliked Schubert. I feel like understanding his feeling.Maybe Rubinstein was not good at Schubert either.Both are very confident men.
p.s. Her performance sample:
http://www.mp3.de/musik/genre/band/110000/283123/1
Post Edited (2006-04-27 22:41)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2006-04-27 23:00
vin wrote:I will say that when I try to sing it, it feels a bit unnatural to not give a slight crescendo at the very end of measures 1 and 3, <
I played this recently, and I agree, both for singing the part and playing it. Without a slight crescendo the note felt more like a "stomp" and with it felt more like a "lean". I decided I liked the lean in this beautiful, legato phrase. It is certainly quite possible to overdo this intensifying preparation, though.
vin also wrote: but in some auditions, someone is likely to grouse about not following the score ( a valid concern<
There are so many things we do to notes, phrases, and musical lines that are simply part of the syntax of making music that are not written into the score.
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2006-04-28 19:45
A chamber music prof. told me that Schubert's manuscripts are very sloppy and that it is almost impossible to distinguish his accents and decrescendos and that if an accent doesn't make sense it might very well be a descresc. or vice versa.
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2006-04-29 13:15
An amateur's take on playing Schubert's Unfinished:
1. Schubert strattled the classical and romantic periods.
2. Schubert's melodies are vocal, singable.
3. The 7th is both dramatic and a personal utterance, filled with sorrow and resignation.
4. The clarinet solos should be played as they would be sung, but with the natural crescendos/decrescendos present but subdued.
vJoe
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-04-29 15:05
Well, I'll change my tack just a little: it isn't the deepest question ever posted on the list -- but I'd say it does require quite a deep answer in order fully to do it justice.
First off, asking whether or not to do a crescendo makes giving an answer too tricky, because 'not doing a crescendo' is too dead an attitude to take. We need a richer context.
The best first move is to take seriously another context, namely the context of speech -- as vin did himself when he talked about different pronunciations of the word "articulate".
Then, if you imagine each successive pair of notes in the solo to correspond to the two syllables of a word, we get the 'Schubert Unfinished' pronunciation corresponding to a word like "deny", as opposed to a 'normal' pronunciation corresponding to a word like "really". That's because "deny" is stressed on the second syllable, and "really" on the first.
Why do I say that "really" is 'normal'? Clearly in the world of words, "really" and "deny" have equal status.
Well, this is where style comes in. In classical music, which is the background against which Schubert was writing, a bar 'normally' begins and goes away. In a bar of 2/4 or 3/4, the first beat is 'normally' more than the other(s), and in bars of 4/4 and 6/4 there is a hierarchy of two 2/4 bars and two 3/4 bars respectively, with the second bar less than the first.
Notice that that doesn't mean that such bars are always like this. The value of a style resides both in the following of its norms, and in the stretching and even in the contradiction of those norms.
Now, because classical music very often contains structures of different lengths that are sometimes shorter and sometimes longer than the bar, the idea of 'normal' often applies to a group of two bars, and consists of the first bar being in some sense stronger than the second.
Consider the second subject of the first movement of Beethoven's clarinet trio, bars 46ff. This, in a piano dynamic, consists of two pairs of bars, each pair normal. Then Beethoven writes a crescendo, resulting in the next three bars failing to be normal, with a return to a subito p on the fourth.
The effect of this passage relies on the performers' representation not only of what is exceptional (the crescendo) but also what is normal, and is considerably diminished if bars 46 and 47 are also played with a crescendo, as is quite commonly done.
So, to go back to Schubert, the pairs of bars are pronounced abnormally, as shown by the accent and change of harmony in the strings (also with accent). This abnormality is heightened by crescendo and stretto, and so can be initially not very abnormal, growing to the forte in bar 72, and then diminuendoing normally to the end.
But it need not necessarily be so small.
Depending on how the strings play bars 64 and 65, the beginning of the solo can be quite tense in sound, and the accent more dramatic. That heightens the contrast with the oboe answer at bar 84.
So, to get back to the original question, is there a crescendo between the two syllables of "deny"? Well, in the context of speech, if I say the word slowly to myself, I find that I need not make a crescendo.
What happens is rather a change of sound on the 'n', without increase or decrease in dynamic, but nevertheless a maintenance of tension that prefigures the 'y', at whatever degree of accent is called for by the atmosphere.
Fortunately, you can do this on the clarinet too -- once you recognise it, that is.
There are other things to say about Schubert's use of the long slur, indicating something like sostenuto, and how that may interact with the standard classical meaning of the slur, but enough for the moment.
Tony
Post Edited (2006-04-29 15:38)
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2006-04-30 00:49
So,agogik is an important matter to consider in Schubert's accent.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-04-30 17:19
I wrote:
>> There are other things to say about Schubert's use of the long slur, indicating something like sostenuto, and how that may interact with the standard classical meaning of the slur...>>
This is just a wrinkle on that, and only for those who want to bother to understand me:
The solo starts with a pianissimo marking. Well, often people think that that means an inaudible beginning, growing from nothing. But actually, that is a modern interpretation.
You're far better off, in all sorts of music, to think that a pianissimo beginning nevertheless begins. You can achieve that by making a 'proper' sound, not an echotone. Then, the 'abnormality' in the Schubert has some bite, because it's unexpected.
And, though they occur in a much later style, 'pianissimos' in the Debussy Rhapsodie can profitably 'begin', too. Otherwise, afterwards, you're condemned to making a crescendo as your only possible expression.
Pianissimo is not a condemnation to one dynamic -- it's a space.
And crescendo is of course a possible expression -- but not the only one.
Tony
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