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 hardest passages for intonation
Author: johng 2017
Date:   2006-06-11 14:39

What do you think are the most difficult woodwind passages for intonation in ensembles? I can think of the beginning of Mendelsohn's Overture to Midsummer Night's Dream and the second Prominade in Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

johng

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 Re: hardest passages for intonation
Author: BelgianClarinet 
Date:   2006-06-11 17:26

Whenever lots of A and Bb are involved, I get nightmares ;-)

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 Re: hardest passages for intonation
Author: ginny 
Date:   2006-06-11 18:11

Of our current wind ensemble program I'd say Slava by Bernstein where it goes up to the high F# over the staff, primarily because all the clarinets play it. I think it's mostly on one of the clarinets though. It was ironic that he started telling first chair how to get it in tune with a tuner. Eventually the conductor offered him an alternate fingering as a gentle hint as to just who was out.

We also have intonation problems with a Mendelsohn piece which starts in the throat in thirds rather exposed. It is ok if we don't play it first before all the horn's have warmed up. It can be just tooth gnashingly bad if we play it before anything else.

I assume that those are the sorts of things that cause intonation to be painfully obvious.

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 Re: hardest passages for intonation
Author: Ken Shaw 2017
Date:   2006-06-12 00:22

The opening of the Tchaikovsky 5th, 1st and 2nd clarinets in unison, going on and on.

Ken Shaw

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 Re: hardest passages for intonation
Author: clarnibass 
Date:   2006-06-12 06:45

Something I'm playing right now, which has bass clarient altisimo with unison and octave unison with flute and contrabass, and another unison I'm playing of two bass clarinets and alto saxophone, which has a huge jump between almost every two notes.

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 Re: hardest passages for intonation
Author: rbell96 
Date:   2006-06-12 10:08

A few passages spring to mind.

Bass clarinet lines in the opening of Mahler 1, there tough.

Rachmaninoff 2nd Symphony - The solo, its tough for so many reasons.

Prokofiev 3rd Piano concerto - opening passage with two clarinets.

Dvorak 8 - Plenty of extremely quiet passages between two clarinets

Berg Chamber Concerto for Violin, Piano and 13 winds. There are many passages in this piece that are incredibly difficult for intonation between the Bass, A Clarinet & E flat in addition to the ensemble as a whole.

Stravinsky Rite of Spring - Rondes printanieres - E flat Clarinet and Bass Clarinet are together in a very exposed solo.

Debussy Nocturnes - Wind intonation is hard at the start of Nuages.

I am sure some more will spring to mind, will add later!

Rob

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