 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2006-06-04 18:02
I've searched the archives and read discussions about the use of period clarinets to play Mozart, and the use of period instruments in general. With regard to this symphony, apparently clarinets were not originally included.
There is great discussion about performance of this piece utilizing "period" instruments. Here is a question from the uninformed - with the exception of the clarinet, which other instruments might be substituted? How does the piece vary, outside of the obvious issues with pitch?
And a side question - what did reed players use for reeds in those days? Where did they get their materials?
Thanks.
Sue Tansey
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-06-04 19:23
Sue,
Our community orchestra just blew up trying to perform the 40th on contemporary instruments last night. Hopefully, we'll do better tonite at our second public performance. Its hell to have peaked at dress rehearsal.
Evidently Wolfie omitted clarinets from his first draft of the 40th then added them for the second go-around. Version 2.0 sure sounds better.
Interestingly, some riffs in the 4th movement seem made for simple fingerings --like 1-2 Bb5 (no side key). Do period clarinets have the bridge link mechanism that closes that extra hole between the LH 1st and 2nd finger holes?
Bob Phillips
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-06-05 16:17
Bob -
Mozart-era clarinets had 5 keys: a register key, which, alone, also sounded the throat Ab; a throat A key; a low Ab key for the right little finger (there was only a finger hole for low F); and low F# and E keys. There were no rings, no connectors and no extra holes. The half steps were cross-fingered. Not to mention that the reed was on top.
There are a few Mozart licks that are actually easier on the 5-key instrument, such as the throat Ab/Bb trill in the Quintet near the opening of the first movement developement.
Sue -
The Mozart 40th was, as Bob says, originally composed without clarinets. Presumably Mozart took it to another city, where there were clarinets, and he made a minor rearrangement to create clarinet parts. See http://www.learnedcounsel.com/mozart1.htm. In the original version, the material was given mostly to the oboes, with some of it going to the flute and the bassoons.
Mozart-era reeds were hand-made, almost certainly from the same cane we use today. A few old reeds have survived, though from somewhat later than Mozart's time, and I'm pretty sure those are arundo donax cane, which was used for oboe and bassoon reeds.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-06-06 10:23
Ken Shaw wrote, in part:
>> Not to mention that the reed was on top.>>
Rather, it is possible that the reed was on top.
Tony
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-06-06 22:51
Tony
Reed on top seems like a painful proposition, how does one neatly articulate notes?
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-07 10:41
Tony Pay mentioned that the reed might probably have been on top, which would have been true of English and French clarinetists of the time, but possible not so true of Viennese (or German) players, who were increasingly switching to reed-below technique.
What does seem likely is that all players at that time used a double-lip embouchure, judging from Erich Hoeprich's observation that almost without exception, 18th-century mouthpieces betrayed no tooth marks.
The five-key clarinets of the time would have had thin, tapering mouthpieces to which the reed -- about half the size of those used today -- was attached by twine. (see illustrations in the Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet).
Some experts describe the tone of such instruments when played with the reed above as being weak and unresonant in the chalumeau register. Yet Anton Stadler, for whom the clarinet concerto and quintet were written, was known to have cultivated beautiful low tones, and preferred to play second clarinet against his brother's first in the imperial harmony band. This indicates to me that he probably played with the reed below.
Stadler apparently commissioned the Viennese instrument maker Lodz to adapt improvements he had devised for the basset horn to an A-clarinet, resulting in the invention of the basset clarinet with four chromatic notes descending to low C.
To answer Diz's question, clarinetists then used a variety of articulations, including with the chest (ha-ha-ha) and were said to be very expressive in the clarion register with the reed on top. This technique remained generally in use in Italy (particularly in Naples) until the late 19th century.
Since the five-key lacked a c-sharp/g-sharp key, I am puzzled by the prominent use of clarion A-flat in bars 81 to 84 of the allegro of Kv622, which is in the earliest versions of the concerto contemporary with the five-key instruments. Can anyone inform me of how this note was played on an early clarinet?
I wonder also if I could ask Tony Pay, who plays this concerto so beautifully, if he could tell me why the indicated slurs in the Baerenreiter Ur-text edition differ from the markings in the original editions. And does anyone know the meaning of a wedge to mark an articulation. Was it a hard or a soft attack? In modern editions, it is rendered merely as a dot.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-07 10:43
My apology for misquoting Tony Pay. He said correctly that the reed was possibly on top, not probably.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-06-07 11:00
beejay wrote:
> I wonder also if I could ask Tony Pay, who plays this
> concerto so beautifully, if he could tell me why the indicated
> slurs in the Baerenreiter Ur-text edition differ from the
> markings in the original editions.
Don't you just hate it when companies like Baerenreiter make something like Ur-text a marketing term?
There is no Ur-text edition of K622.
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-07 11:46
Mark Charette wrote:
>
> Don't you just hate it when companies like Baerenreiter make
> something like Ur-text a marketing term?
>
> There is no Ur-text edition of K622.
You are quite right, Mark. I should have put the words "urtext" in quotation marks.
I did have a chance recently to study the original 1802 Andre edition, which seems as playable as any modern edition. It is quite parsimonious with slurs, which leads me to ask how contemporary musicians were expected to play the long passages of detached notes. I assume they knew from convention when and where to add slurs and articulations.
It seems that the slurs and dots included in modern editions, including Baerenreiter's, were taken from much later 19th century editions -- is that not so?
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2006-06-07 17:26
Beejay, you can finger the clarion Ab/G# in two ways on a 5-key clarinet: trxxo/xox or: trxxo/xxoeb . Intonation differs sometimes from one instrument to another but generally spoken the first is sharper than the second.
Mozart is very precise in marking the articulations he wants and when there aren’t any I think you’re quite right that much is left to the performer’s knowledge of style. Too many editions have been smeared with markings that shouldn’t be there so it’s very important to find editions that at least claim to be “urtext”. In the case of Mozart’s clarinet concerto I think the André edition from 1802 is the closest you can come (haven’t seen it for years so take it for what it’s worth). You can also get much inspiration from the Winterthur manuscript.
I’m sure Tony has more to add to this.
Alphie
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2006-06-09 23:37
"Mozart is very precise in marking the articulations he wants"
i'm not so sure. There is a huge debate as to what Mozart meant by dots/strokes, and if there was actually any difference between the two. I've seen a facsimile of the Gran Partita, where dots are marked in one part while strokes are marked in another playing the same part or rhythm. In Bärenreiter eveything is marked with strokes (wedges). I have to then argue with colleagues who play molto staccato because they believe that this is what Mozart meant by "wedges"! Harnoncourt has more convincing arguments, but who knows really??
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-10 10:41
I recently had an opportunity to examine a page from the Don Giovanni manuscript in the National Library of France. It included both dots and strokes and hastily written dots that could have been strokes. An identical passage for strings had dots under the first and second violin parts, but not under the viola part. What was an editor to do?
Many of the long slurs in the current Barhenreiter "urtext" edition of Kv622 are missing in the 1801 Andre edition, which tends to slur groups of three or two quavers. Andre also includes emphatic wedges on dotted quarter notes -- for example, measures 90 or 174 in the allegro -- which are slurred over in the Barenreiter edition. It seems to me that the wedges require special emphasis, but not necessarily a molto staccato.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-06-10 11:56
beejay wrote:
>> I recently had an opportunity to examine a page from the Don> Giovanni manuscript in the National Library of France. It included both dots and strokes and hastily written dots that could have been strokes. An identical passage for strings had dots under the first and second violin parts, but not under the viola part. What was an editor to do?>>
We do look for uniformity nowadays probably more than was the custom at the time. We're currently playing Cosi fan tutte at Glyndebourne, and have followed the rule that string players aren't allowed pencils in the rehearsal.
Thus, instead of playing off parts with written in bowings, they have to content themselves with what Mozart wrote:-) Different players thus bow differently on encountering a long slur -- but more importantly, they have to look to the context for themselves to make the decision. This meant that discussions were about the musical result rather than the means of achieving it.
>> Andre also includes emphatic wedges on dotted quarter notes -- for example, measures 90 or 174 in the allegro -- which are slurred over in the Barenreiter edition. It seems to me that the wedges require special emphasis, but not necessarily a molto staccato.>>
There's a discussion of this issue, under the heading 'Categories, prototypes, dashes and dots' in my Phrasing in Contention article:
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/Phrasing.html
Tony
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-10 12:43
Thank you Tony. I've downloaded the article and am about to settle down for a long read.
bj
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2006-06-11 06:41
Wow- non-uniform bowing! I'd love to hear the results of your approach. Is this the first time this is being done? (I mean recently, not 200 years ago!)
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Author: beejay
Date: 2006-06-11 16:05
Tony Pay's article from Early Music answers many questions I had. It refers to the many occasions in which Mozart did not bother to write any slur above a fast-running passage.
He adds, "In wind music it cannot always have meant staccato. The absence of a slur in these cases is often best thought of as the absence of anything to correct — the bar structure or the note groupings are sufficient to show the phrase-rhythm, but the passage may nevertheless be played legato. 308. "
Yet most of us lack the native knowledge that enabled the musicians of Mozart's time to know when to slur and when to play detached. So we go on using versions marked up by editors or our teachers because without them we would be up a creek without a paddle.
Nevertheless, I wonder whether the Andre and other early editions, which came out at a time when people clearly had seen the autograph, were not much closer to Mozart's intentions than modern works. After all, Stadler was still alive, and if those first editions had been grossly wrong, surely he would have remarked upon it.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-06-11 23:12
beejay wrote, in part:
>> [from 'Phrasing in Contention']:
"The absence of a slur [in extended fast running passages] is often best thought of as the absence of anything to correct — the bar structure or the note groupings are sufficient to show the phrase-rhythm, but the passage may nevertheless be played legato."
>> Yet most of us lack the native knowledge that enabled the musicians of Mozart's time to know when to slur and when to play detached.>>
I'd want to say that in both Mozart's time and ours, whether a passage is articulated or not isn't such a crucial issue. Or rather, it is a crucial issue, but it's secondary to the performer's choice of musical character for a given passage -- which has to make sense in context, of course.
'Detached' and 'slurred', produced by a thoughtful player, are not clearly defined characters. Staccato admits of varying degrees, shading into quasi-legato.
>> So we go on using versions marked up by editors or our teachers because without them we would be up a creek without a paddle....
(I have to say that I *like* being up a creek without a paddle in this sense;-)
>>....nevertheless, I wonder whether the Andre and other early editions, which came out at a time when people clearly had seen the autograph, were not much closer to Mozart's intentions than modern works.>>
Well, I agree with you. I think, though, that the Baerenreiter edition is not bad in this regard, being relatively uncluttered.
I don't want to promote an excess of vigorous clarinet staccato in Mozart's passagework, even though his own approach to passagework was noted for its lack of the sort of legato that Beethoven used.
Mozart after all commented on the degree of practice required to make such passagework 'flow like oil' -- which sounds as though even his reportedly 'detached' style had many qualities we nowadays associate with legato. (I'm reminded of the wonderful modern piano playing of the late Jaques Klein, which magically combined fluidity and clarity in a way that seemed to offer the best of both qualities.)
I myself now use much less local articulation in the passagework of K622 than I did in my recording of over 20 years ago, probably because I now want to emphasise different aspects of the piece.
Tony
Post Edited (2006-06-12 13:44)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-06-12 11:26
Liquorice wrote:
>> Wow- non-uniform bowing! I'd love to hear the results of your approach.>>
I think it's being broadcast and televised later in the run. I'll let you know.
But, the end result is not different in sound, particularly. Rather, the whole enterprise is governed by musical rather than technical considerations, at the level of the individual player. The responsibility is pushed further down the chain of command, as it were.
>> Is this the first time this is being done? (I mean recently, not 200 years ago!>>
In classical music I don't know of it, but I'm sure it has been tried.
In later music, free bowings have sometimes been IMPOSED;-) I remember playing for Stokowski in the early 70s, things like Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, and his saying, "YOU, Sir! You different person from person next to you! Why you play the same?"
Tony
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