Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-06-05 14:26
I wrote:
>> One of the important characteristics of 6/8 is that it allows bars to be 'in' a number of things within one movement. Hence a bar can be 'in' 1, hierarchical 2, equally divided 2 (consisting essentially of two equal 3/8 bars), or 6.>>
Perhaps I was wrong to single out 6/8 in this regard. Of course, 4/4 is equally open to different subdivisions: 1, hierarchical 2, equally divided 2 (consisting essentially of two equal 2/4 bars), or 4 -- or even 8 (cf bars148 and 149 of the Mozart clarinet concerto). Missing only is hemiola.
Unthinking modern players tend not to have these considerations at the front of their awareness -- nor deeply inside them, which would be better -- because for them barlines pass almost unnoticed. Of course, you need to be AWARE of a bar as an entity before you can consider the question of how it may be subdivided.
It has to be admitted that when 'period' players started to re-establish the barline in the second half of the last century, some of them did so in too enthusiastic a manner; and their performances were mocked, sometimes justifiably, as 'barline-bashing'. But a rather better way of characterising how a sensitive player USES the barline is to say that they see that a barline has VARYING importance; therefore that variation has expressive potential.
It's possible, for example, for a particular barline to be stronger than the subsequent one, creating a pair of bars as a hierarchical structure one level up. That's true of the first two bars of the minuet of the Kegelstatt, for example, which form a two-bar unit that is answered by two equal one-bar units in bars 3 and 4.
Another notion that is useful in the performance of the Kegelstatt is that of 'tilting'. (This isn't an accepted terminology, I should say; I made it up:-) It occurs rather obviously in the opening of the clarinet concerto Rondo, where the unequal dividing of the accompaniment of the first and fifth bar ('dah (rest) dah dah dah dah') 'tilts' our perception of those bars towards being in 1 rather than 2. (So the rhythmic scheme, bar by bar, is: 1,1, equal 2, hierarchical 2; 1, 1, equal 2, hierarchical 2.)
A rather more subtle example of the idea is the first bar of the Kegelstatt. This might be thought to be in 2 -- the LH (of the Klavier) definitely looks in 2. But the bar is 'tilted' toward being perceived in 1 by the unequal subdivision of the bar in the viola and RH. Unequal subdivision of a bar has the effect of tilting our perception of it towards unity -- even a subdivision like this, which is VERY NEARLY equal. And the same is true for the clarinet melody in bars 9ff. It's what gives it that wonderful, suspended quality, over the top of the simple, normal (hierarchical 2) accompaniment.
I should be clear that I don't think that an intellectual grasp of this sort of thing in any way guarantees excellent performance. Notions like bar-hierarchy, phrase-shape and so on, that are commonly thought to be RULES of the classical style, can be just as dead in the wrong hands as anything else.
Rather, these things are TOOLS: devices that are always alive, yet capable of being either expressive or 'normal', that were developed by the great composer-performers. We need to practise in order to be able to use them with that understanding.
Tony
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
