 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2006-05-08 01:13
Last Thursday, Performance Today aired an interesting version of Bach's Brandeburg Conc. #2 with David Shifrin playing the trumpet part on an Eb clarinet. I've looked around the web for a recording, but haven't found anything. Is there one available?
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-05-08 07:24
Why, do you want to burn it ceremonially?
What was the recorder part played on? A steam-whistle?
I have no problem at all with people arranging Bach works for modern instruments, in cases where Bach didn't specify the instrumentation. So playing Die Kunst der Fuge on modern brass is fine. But the Brandenburgs are written for particular combinations of instruments, and that is how they should be played. In this case, a baroque trumpet, recorder, baroque oboe and violin, with a small group of strings (one or two to a part) and harpsichord continuo. All played, of course, with regard to what we know about authentic style. The beauty of the solo writing is how well the instruments blend; the baroque trumpet, recorder and oboe should sound amazingly alike and none should overwhelm the others. Modern instruments cannot achieve this.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-05-08 18:00
At the Casals Festival in the 1950s, Marcel Mule performed the trumpet part on soprano saxophone. The recording is still available.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-05-08 18:48
Hey, y'all, give the man a break! If we weren't allowed to play certain musiks on the 'wrong' instrument, I never would have had the opportunity to play soprano clarinet solo music on my bass clarinet for high school solo festivals, and consequently would not have attained the enormous commercial and artistic success I've had on that instrument (er, well, I can dream, right?).
![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
Post Edited (2006-05-08 18:48)
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Author: johnsonfromwisconsin
Date: 2006-05-08 19:56
In my opintion, the fact that he left instrumentation open on many works indicates to me that Bach wasn't much of a stickler for instrumentational purity. Such notions, I believe, are generally modern.
-JfW
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2006-05-08 20:12
It's neat to hear period pieces played on correct period instruments, but that doesn't mean that the music should be frozen in time. Mozart piano concertos on dinky little period pianos are nice, but they come alive on modern instruments. What about Pictures at an Exhibition? Mussorgsky intended it for piano. Or Invitation to the Dance? Berlioz threw some great clarinet parts into his orchestration. Too bad Weber never heard it that way. Of course there's also Isaac Albéniz, who wrote all those wonderful guitar pieces, for piano.
Seriously, Brandenburg #2 sounded nice, different and I'd like to get a recording. Nothing more.
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2006-05-08 20:30
I am sure Shifrin did a fine job...he could imitate any style of instrument ...
he is a very fine natural player....
David Dow
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-05-08 20:33
I'm a bit sensitive about this particular piece because I am (or was) a recorder player, and I've heard it massacred so many times by vibrato-obsessed Boehm flute-players and trumpeters who thought their role was to be the SOLOIST and drown everyone else. Modern trumpet and modern oboe sound truly awful together; it is one of the clearest examples of a piece that needs authentic instruments to work.
Johnson-from-W - bach left instrumentation open on many works, agreed. On many others, he didn't. We should respect his intentions when he was specific. Even if we don't use precisely the instruments he specified, we should at least aim to get the effect he intended.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2006-05-09 04:44
Hmmm....not exactly in my opinion. Yes strive for what the original composers intended, but based on so many facts and written transcripts, we still do not know which 'interpretations' are the most precise. How one should approach a certain baroque piece can be very very different but not necessarily incorrect, even if it is obviously 'advant garde' in many ways. No true and original baroque oboe which works exist today, and even the oldest available ones (which truly are not very old to predict) are only copies of famous makers. Reeds of that period obviously do not exist. That would mean that to copy the true sound of that period would be in many means impossible. I once read that a famous scholar mentioned that to really ascertain how Bach's (or any other period composer) works were to be performed, no matter with or without preferred instrumentation, you will have to travel back in time with a time machine, beacuse there is really no way to tell! (Of course we can build the nearest possibilites by rules of interpretation, and we have seen such beautiful recordings by period ensembles, but what's wrong with breaking them. )
I remember a legendary recording (which i am trying to relocate) of the Brandenburg 2 performed by Heinz Holliger on oboe and Maurice Andre on trumpet. It was beautiful. Artistic freedom exists in art, and i think art strives because there is improvisation and creativity, even if experts disagree of it, but that is one of the essences of art, it is what keeps art alive.
Howard
Post Edited (2006-05-09 04:47)
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-05-09 05:32
I'm with Peacham on this one ... bad taste was only once a hit, and that was that horrid movie debut of Peter Jackson.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Merlin
Date: 2006-05-09 14:34
"At the Casals Festival in the 1950s, Marcel Mule performed the trumpet part on soprano saxophone. The recording is still available."
Call me a stickler, but I believe that Mule actually played the part on sopranino.
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