 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-25 05:24
Hello fellow clarinet players,
I recently had to play Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite which has some wonderful clarinet writing.
In the V movement, in the "B" section (concert D maj), the clarinet has a prominent solo which I played on Bb (making the written key in E maj). In hind sight, I wish I had played that section on the A cla (which would have put the solo over the break in F maj).
This challenge got my mind to start thinking the following:
"Could we create an excerpt book that consists of selections which demonstrate where the"wrong" clarinet was chosen by the composer?"
This is not just an issue of convenience. In many cases, composers such as Mahler knew exactly the timbre and color of the clarinet they selected. Hence parts in Bb, A, Eb, C, bass.
In other cases, the timbre does not seem to make a real difference:
1) Hary Janos
2) Brahms Third Symphony, 1st movement (Bb intro, prior to secondary theme played on A cla)
3)Katchaturian Violin Concerto (coda) written on Bb but much easier on A.
4) Bizet Interacte from Carmen, where the F#/G# trill can be avoided.
My question for discussion is as follows:
Can we as a collective come up with excerpts which make more sense to disregard the composers instructions (in terms of key of clarinet) and that make more sense being played on a clarinet in another key.
As an example to get us started:
Till Eulenspiegel: Now played on the Eb but really scored for the D clarinet. The D clarinet seems to have disappeared from our arsenal even though other composers such as Stravinsky also scored for the D.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-25 06:14
Here's a couple:
Copland: Hoedown from Rodeo. Scored for Bb, but far easier to play in A. The listener honestly can't tell the difference. As best I can tell from my own informal research, Copland probably couldn't tell the difference, either, and wouldn't care either way. Copland once wrote that bass clarinet tone was difficult to distinguish from soprano clarinet tone--if he thought that, then the A/Bb distinction must have been really negligible to his ears. Also, from what I can tell Copland usually scored for Bb clarinet out of habit more than anything else.
Ginastera: Variaciones Concertantes Op. 23. Ginastera (student of Copland) wrote the piece as a C score (all parts written at concert pitch on the score, but with the understanding that some parts will be played on transposing instruments). The rental parts are written for Bb clarinets, but I think that may have been something left to the publisher's discretion. Given that the piece is in G major (concert pitch)--or B Phrygian, more specifically--it seems to make more sense to play it on the A clarinet or some combination of the A with C or D clarinet.
Post Edited (2009-03-25 06:28)
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Author: srattle
Date: 2009-03-25 09:50
Dileep: Till Eulenspiegel is always played on a D clarinet here in Germany
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-03-25 11:24
From what I have been told, you're fine to transpose things so long as you don't change anything with regard to musical content and you keep the copy for your own use.
"4) Bizet Interacte from Carmen, where the F#/G# trill can be avoided."
Not a problem with us full Boehm players!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2009-03-25 11:25)
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-03-25 11:45
"Is Violating the Composer's Intentions Justifiable?"
It all depends on-
1. How much the composer knew about the specific characteristics of the instrument.
2. How much you respect those ideas.
In regard to #2, which seems like blasphemy at first, a very famous clarinetist once mentioned in a masterclass that he was at the moment re-writing a new work which he was to perform from Bb to A clarinet. He said, "I don't care that the composer wrote it first on Bb when it can be played much more easily on A. I can learn it better in less time on A than Bb. The composer is a composer, not a clarinetist."
During one of the lessons in this one-week masterclass, one of the students was having trouble with a difficult spot in the Nielsen- the section in question had some fast skips in the high register. The teacher tried playing it once and just picked up a pencil and said, "Just put a slur here and here and you should be fine." The WHOLE class looked at him like he had just committed a crime. His response to the question is everyone's mind was, "What!? If you hear 2 performances of the Mozart Concerto, they will have completely different articulations in the technical passages. If it is allowed for Mozart then why not for Nielsen."
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 12:02
I recall reading a funny story about this once, and perhaps someone can fill in the rest of the details.
A famous conductor was rehearsing with a major orchestra, and he stopped the rehearsal to speak to the first clarinet. He asked the musician why he was using a B-flat since the part was written for an A. The clarinet player mentioned that it was easier on the B-flat, but the conductor responded that he wanted it played on the A.
The clarinet player proceeded to make a big show of switching clarinets, but he really continued to play on his B-flat. "That's much better," said the conductor, "that's how it's supposed to sound!"
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 12:11
I once had a similar experience, except that the composition was a serial piece by a mid-twentieth century composer and the part wasn't identified as either in B-flat or A. I actually played an entire rehearsal on the wrong clarinet, during which no one, including the conductor, even noticed because the notes fit in just as well a half step off (I forget which way) to the ears of everyone involved. I only happened to notice while looking at the score myself to check something that I had used the wrong instrument. When I corrected the error at the next rehearsal, no one seemed to notice.
I only wish the composer had been there - I wonder to this day if he would have known either.
Karl
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 12:21
I just did a performance of the Schumann piano concerto last weekend. The 1st theme in the opening movement starts with clarinet in A. Later, when the same music returns at the recapitulation, it is written for B-flat clarinet, presumably because the section before it is (appropriately) scored for B-flat clarinet. There is a rest of more than adequate length after the exposed B-flat section, and Schumann changes to A clarinet immediately after the repeat of the this 1st theme. The clarinet parts in these specific spots are much easier to tune on an A clarinet, and in any case, if you've already solved the pitch problems once, why do it all over again on a different instrument?
Karl
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-03-25 12:27
Just because a composer can write/craft a gorgeous piece of music doesn't mean they are able to execute it in the most efficient manner.
An architect can design a beautiful home, but usually needs an engineer for the fine details.
A perfect example is Brahms who had little familiarity with winds until later in his career. It doesn't mean he's a bad composer, just that we know better how to execute his intentions.
James
Gnothi Seauton
Post Edited (2009-03-25 12:47)
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-25 12:30
Good comments all...thanks for getting the thread going.
Srattle, I did not realize that the D clarinet is used in Germany on Till. Not common in the States. Is it used in works like the complete ballet score of Firebird?
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Author: Ed
Date: 2009-03-25 14:12
I recently played on the Strauss Oboe concerto and realized that it would be easier on A. Many passages for example in the key of B would be a breeze in C.
For many years I would get stuck when playing 2nd on a pops concert ending with Stars and Stripes. Many groups have that part for A clarinet. I finally transposed it for Bb, so I would not have to pull out the A just for the encore.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 14:18
The hornpipe in Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore is written in Eb for clarinet in A and is really awkward. It works much better in D on the Bb.
At the beginning of the last movement of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, there's a short solo for C clarinet, anticipating the Eb solo. When it's played on the C instrument, the fingerings are the same as when it comes in a few moments later on the Eb. Transposing it on the Bb is not difficult, but it doesn't match the note-to-note tone colors. Hearing it played it on the C clarinet is a revelation. See Greg Smith's comments at http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=51955&t=51845
A search of the Klarinet list will find extensive comments by Dan Leeson.
Clarinetguy's story comes from a great article by Augustin Duques, the principal clarinet of Toscanini's NBC Symphony, in the first series of Clarinet Magazine in the 1950s. It's at http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/03/001402.txt and http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1998/03/001413.txt.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 14:45
Lots of thoughtful comments here and in the Archives. I love the story about satisfying the conductor by pretending to switch instruments. Among the clarinets I own, there can be far more of a tone quality difference between two Bb clarinets with different mouthpiece and reed setups than I can hear between a well-matched pair of clarinet in A and clarinet in Bb.
I do think that when a composer calls for a basset horn or basset clarinet, it's best to use one if one's available. In the Mozart concerto, for instance, we lose the lowest notes altogether if we play on clarinet in A.
I also think it's best to use a soprano clarinet in Eb or a clarinet in C when the composer asks for them, except when someone doesn't have access to the specified instrument (better to play on the "wrong" instrument than miss out on the music) or when the composer's notation presents some ridiculous technical problem that gives the musician a choice between playing well on the "wrong" instrument or risking a sloppy-sounding performance on the right one. While I think Dan Leeson's sometimes a bit of an extreme purist, I agree with him that the Eb and C clarinets do sound different, especially more shrill in the lower register, than clarinets in Bb and A. Also, the highest notes on Eb and C sound more clear and resonant, more similar to the rest of the range, on the small clarinets than they do on altissimo on longer clarinets. In Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique," for example, I think switching clarinets makes sense. He knows what he wants with those demonic shrieks.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 15:29
I actually go the other way with Stars and Stripes. The original (for band) begins in E-flat and goes to A-flat in the Trio. I played it that way at the end of every performance for three years as a member of the Army Field Band - had to have been hundreds of performances. Needless to say, I had the part memorized after a few weeks or less. Most orchestras that I've played in use arrangements that have been transposed down a half-step to D and G. If I use an A clarinet, it's the same notes as the band version.
Karl
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 15:47
I think in general, there are more times when it's better to use a C clarinet when it's in the score than not. For one thing, composers in the Classical and early (to even mid-) Romantic periods were fairly careful to pick the clarinet that best fit the key in which they were working. The Instruments had fewer keys and producing chromatics was more of an issue, so the likelihood is that in most cases the music will be technically easier on the instrument for which it was written. There are certainly instances like Symphonie Fantastique where the timbral effect of the C clarinet seems nearly mandatory now that orchestra players are more likely to have C clarinets available and use them. Passages like the beginning on Moldau or Mozartiana are very much easier to play on the C clarinet for which they were composed.
Karl
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Author: davyd
Date: 2009-03-25 15:55
Dvorak's 9th symphony is for clarinets in A, except for a few bars for clarinets in Bb in the exposition and coda of the Largo. Playing these passages on the A means 4 sharps instead of 3 flats, but the notes aren't difficult. I don't see what's gained by switching instruments four times.
Moncayo's Huapango is written for Bb's throughout. For a section in concert D major, this results in the dreaded (at least by me) D#5-B4-G#5 sequence several times in fast 6/8. How am I "harming" anything by rewriting this passage for the A instrument?
Mendelssohn's 1st symphony is for clarinets in Bb throughout, except for the last 30 bars, which are for the C instruments. Maybe the 16-year-old Felix thought he was helping us by moving to an easier key, but I don't see what's gained by switching instruments for a brief tutti passage.
I would expect that professionals would have all the required high-quality, well-adjusted hardware. Down here in the amateur basement, it's a different story. My no-name C clarinet is never going to measure up to my Buffet Bb and A, so parts for the C get transposed as soon as is practical. As much as I would have liked to have a bass clarinet in A for the times it has been needed, neither renting nor borrowing were options.
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-25 17:02
To be sure, I tend to be a purist and in most cases try to use the clarinet that the composer intended. (I do not own a D clarinet or an A bass clarinet (which only Wagner scored for - but correct me if I am wrong).
In the case of Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, Mahler, and Berlioz, I do think these composers knew the timbre and unique qualities of each clarinet and had that sound in mind when orchestrating. (I do agree with the Sinfonie Fantastique comment made above). Also agree regarding Smetana and Tchaikovsky.
I do think that there are passages, as mentioned above, which really do not have a logical reason for being played on the clarinet that the composer originally scored for.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-03-25 17:19
Dileep,
Is there any thought out there that the tonal qualities of the clarinets for which these composers wrote was more distinct THEN as compared to now?
If so: then the increasingly more homogenous sound of the clarinet family might offset the initial intent of the composer. There are Eb soloists in orchestras now that blend with the other sopranos so well...there was a thread recently on WHAT the appropriate eefer sound should be.
Just as pianos of the 17 and 1800's clearly had different sound profiles/colors that have now blended into that Steinway mold.
Just a thought that I would be curious about.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-03-25 17:45
I've seen Chi-Yu Mo with fellow LSO musicians performing 'Carnival of the Animals' on telly and he used an Eb clarinet in the finale. Sounded good to me!
I'll say this again - it's not cheating, it's being resourceful. Having been branded a cheat on more than one occasion for using an A clarinet as that offered more fluency than a Bb (and by someone who played a clarinet part on soprano sax to get around it easier), I feel there's no harm done provided what you do works well.
If you find things much easier played on a different clarinet than what has been scored, then do what you feel is best and not what other people around you seem to think otherwise - they've got no reason to moan about it and I bet they couldn't even tell the difference anyway.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-25 17:48
Just some random thoughts that might be worth following up on:
I read something once about 19th century C clarinets (from the time of Beethoven, more specifically) having a much lower "cutoff frequency" than modern C clarinets, the suggestion being that they actually sounded more like today's A clarinets. If I can figure out where I saw that (maybe it's on this BBoard) I'll post it.
In the case of Berlioz, he wrote a book on orchestration (I looked at it briefly once), so his thoughts on the matter ought to be spelled out in there. You can download the whole thing here for free (it's in the public domain, naturally):
http://imslp.org/wiki/Treatise_on_Instrumentation_(Berlioz%2C_Hector)
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2009-03-25 17:52
Occasionally there are technical problems too. For instance, in the third act of Puccini's La Bohème, the solo is written for Bb, but goes to low Eb, so if you don't have a full Boehm instrument you have a decision to make. There are a couple band pieces with the same issue. Puccini probably knew what he was doing, but the band composers/transcribers may not have been intent on achieving the particular tone color of a Bb playing very low.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-25 18:42
Ahh....I think I must have read the bit about the cutoff frequencies from the Klarinet list. Given my previous experience with the guy writing the post (I should have known it was him...), I'd consider the whole 18th century C's sound like A's theory to be an unsupported hypothesis until somebody who's actually heard one of these instruments says something on this topic.
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2008/01/000149.txt
Post Edited (2009-03-25 18:42)
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-03-25 19:10
Dileep
A bass parts were used also by Mahler and Rachmaninov and probably a few others.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-25 19:16
Mike,
The reference is to page 488 of Benade, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics. The diagram on the facing page shows the relevant cutoff frequencies, and the "instrument from the time of Beethoven" is shown there to be a C clarinet by the English maker Bilton.
So there's not much of a sample to go on. And I don't think my experience of playing various early C clarinets is that they sound much like a modern A clarinet.
Tony
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Author: katzer
Date: 2009-03-25 22:30
I remember reading once that the one of the very few orchestras where that was "enforced" was the Chicago Symphony.
FWIW, when we did Mahler's 1st, the last movement was written for clarinet in C, none of us had one. Towards the end of the piece there is a key change where I switched to an A clarinet which put me in a much comfier key... but don't tell anyone I did it!
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-03-26 01:54
katzer -
Mahler distinguished between the tone colors of the various size clarinets. The Mahler 1st solo really does call for a lighter, brighter sound than the Bb clarinet normally makes, and I can hardly imagine getting the right color on the A.
In the New York Philharmonic, Mark Nuccio regularly plays a C clarinet where the music calls for it (though I don't think Stanley uses one).
Tchaikovsky's Mozartiana has an infamous cadenza for C clarinet. It's nearly impossible on Bb and only a bit less difficult on A. On C clarinet, it's merely ferocious. I watched a live NYC Ballet broadcast a few years back where it just gobbled up Joe Rabbai, who's a formidable player. I've heard that Ralph McLane used it (in Bb) as his warmup exercise.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-26 02:52
James,
You said:
>There are Eb soloists in orchestras now that blend with the other sopranos >so well...there was a thread recently on WHAT the appropriate eefer sound >should be.
That is a off this topic, but I would agree with you that there seems to be a desire by many to have an Eb sound like a soprano only higher.
I think this is unfortunate. I think that composers, esp Mahler and Strauss, wanted a more strident color than the soprano. The fact that many of these solos can be played on the Bb only underscores the point.
I agree with your post.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2009-03-26 03:55
In Peter and the Wolf, Prokofiev scored the clarinet part in concert pitch.
Although almost everyone plays the part on the A clarinet, there were some clarinetists from the past who played the part on a full Boehm Bb clarinet.
Dileep Gangolli wrote:
> 2) Brahms Third Symphony, 1st movement
> (Bb intro, prior to secondary theme played on A cla)
Don't forget that Brahms originally wrote the entire 1st movement for Bb clarinet, but later changed it when he was told the major solos in the 1st movement would sound better on the A clarinet.
...GBK
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-26 05:33
Don't have anything to say abotu playing the "wrong" clarinet but curious that in the first post you wrote: "I recently had to play..."
I'm just imagining someone kidnapping you and threatening you with all sorts of things unless you play it.... 
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-03-26 12:45
>>In the case of Berlioz, he wrote a book on orchestration (I looked at it briefly once), so his thoughts on the matter ought to be spelled out in there.>>
That's exactly the type of thing I figure into decisions about what instrument to use. Same deal with Walter Piston. Double for Rimsky-Korsakoff, who wrote a two-part how-to book on orchestration (both parts available bound as one, as "Principles of Orchestration," in a Dover paperback). He wrote splendidly for winds. That Dover book is so specific and therefore so useful to me as a still-learning composer, when I write for instruments I don't play, that I keep it next to my computer. (It's saved me from the ignorant error of asking a trombonist to jump rapidly back and forth between first and sixth position, for instance.) If Rimsky asks a clarinetist to do something difficult, he's got his reasons and I respect them.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-03-26 13:24
Dileep,
I'm glad you concur, it was a question that only just occurred to me. I do think that you should have the flexibility(with Eb) to play both ways as YOU feel the composer intended.
I wonder if Tony Pay is still reading this if he would comment on whether he thinks the tonal differences between period instruments are more pronounced than modern ones?
Lelia,
I did a research paper on Rimsky-Korsakoff's idiomatic use of the clarinet in Scherazade, Capriccio Espagnol, and Russian Easter Ovt back in grad school. Not only does he obey the general rules that he espouses in his text, but he also used the clarinet essentially the same way in each piece.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-26 17:06
"I did a research paper on Rimsky-Korsakoff's idiomatic use of the clarinet in Scherazade, Capriccio Espagnol, and Russian Easter Ovt back in grad school. Not only does he obey the general rules that he espouses in his text, but he also used the clarinet essentially the same way in each piece."
James,
Very curious to hear about this, could you start a new thread on this topic for discussion amongst us?
Dileep
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-03-26 17:10
Have a look at the way Richard Strauss uses clarinets in 'Four Last Songs' - in 'September' (in concert D Major) he scored that for Bb clarinet (having previously used the A in 'Frühling') pretty busy.
Does anyone know if he did what he considered best or what he was advised? Has anyone performed this using an A for the first two movements and Bb for the remainder?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2009-03-26 17:27
Ummm. Yes I can. As soon as I dig up the paper. Hmmm. I'll look this weekend...
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-03-26 19:01
>>I did a research paper on Rimsky-Korsakoff's idiomatic use of the clarinet in Scherazade, Capriccio Espagnol, and Russian Easter Ovt back in grad school. Not only does he obey the general rules that he espouses in his text, but he also used the clarinet essentially the same way in each piece.>>
Good to know. I haven't played much of his orchestra music, but I love it. Russian Easter Overture is one of my all-time favorite pieces. It's interesting that so many orchestras play it extremely well -- including orchestras (naming no names...) that don't always play everything well. Despite its complexity, clearly it's a musician-friendly score, written to display the instruments well, instead of posing challenges by mistake or just for the sake of posing challenges.
At the other end of the orchestration bell-curve, if I saw a finger-twisting, tongue-twisting bit for clarinet in a Chopin score, I wouldn't hesitate to switch instruments. I don't agree with some critics that he was an incompetent orchestrator -- that's going too far with the hyperbole for me -- but he did use rather rudimentary orchestration for both of his piano concertos, for instance, and I don't think he knew the wind instruments as well as he did the strings. I've heard so many hideous clams from good trumpet players in both those concertos that I'm convinced there's something basically the matter with the way those parts are written.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-26 20:50
James wrote:
>> I wonder if Tony Pay is still reading this if he would comment on whether he thinks the tonal differences between period instruments are more pronounced than modern ones? >>
I'd say, about the same.
But, I want to say something else, about this whole thread: it's that there can be no justification, IN THE ABSTRACT, for violating a composer's intentions.
The thing is, the most powerful characterisation of the job that we do as players is that we are required to MAKE REAL, and in real time, the ideas of some of the greatest musicians who have ever lived. So if you violate ANY composer's intentions, you have to justify that violation in the world of MUSIC -- that is, in what YOU produce.
THAT court of justice can have many dimensions. It's not just, 'what you can get away with in public.'
Consider: an inferior player might justify his choice to play a passage on another instrument than the composer specified, just because what he could produce on that instrument would HAVE TO BE DEFECTIVE.
That would work, for me.
A better player -- one who could actually play both versions -- might fail to pass muster because the version he produced on the alternative instrument didn't match up to the intention of the composer.
An example of that might be: someone who 'couldn't be bothered' to get hold of the C clarinet asked for by Beethoven in the slow movement of the violin concerto; and who then played it on the A clarinet with a hooty, unfocussed sound that failed to participate in the ethereal dialogue with the violin that Beethoven intended. (Notice the musical judgement involved here.)
Finally, a superlative player, confronted with the problem of playing the same piece in a freezing acoustic, might justify himself by producing on the A clarinet -- because he had both the ability and the imagination to do so -- an approximation of the sound of the C clarinet that he would rather be playing, choosing to do so just because using the C would involve an unacceptable risk of being out of tune after a fast switch.
The thing to see in all of this is that, of course, because you live in the real world, you can do ANYTHING.
But you cannot escape being judged on what you do. And how you measure up to that judgement will be a function of both your understanding and your ability.
Mr Dileep Gangolli's hope to obtain absolution BEFORE THE EVENT is misplaced.
"It is better to ask forgiveness than permission."
But I have my doubts that he -- or his mouse -- are up to knowing when forgiveness is required.
Tony
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-27 03:38
Tony wrote:
> But, I want to say something else, about this whole thread:
> it's that there can be no justification, IN THE ABSTRACT, for
> violating a composer's intentions.
I agree with that.
I think the main problem (with a lot of things, really--not just this topic) is that many of us are too preoccupied with what to do and how to do it and not concerned enough with figuring out how the music is supposed to sound, which is, most of the time, the only thing the composer really cared about. I've been guilty of this myself at times.
I also think that sometimes some of us get so preoccupied with hero worship (whether it be about legendary clarinet teachers/performers or great composers) that we tend to miss the boat musically. We look at critical analysis of the great and famous as if it were an insult to their greatness.
Personally, I think the greater insult is not to ask these critical questions. If the music is worth playing (reproducing), it's also worth taking apart to see how and why it works--to figure out what the composer was really trying to do musically. Once you've successfully managed to do that, you can essentially put yourself in the composer's shoes and figure out the answers to a lot of these more mundane questions, such as which key of instrument to use. At that point you're not violating the composer's intentions, but figuring out how to carry them out in a new context (you as the player with your equipment in your venue, etc.).
Engineers who design manufactured products (like electronic devices) have to do this sort of thing a lot. Old parts that were part of a particular design become obsolete or otherwise unavailable--or they just don't make part X with the same level of quality/functionality they used to, etc. Construction techniques change. To be able to continue to manufacture a product, the engineers have to periodically redesign it to use available parts and manufacturing technology. I'm not talking about noticeable modifications that the customers are aware of--I'm talking about changes to the "innards" of the machines that no one but the manufacturer notices. These changes are not only commonplace; they are *essential* in order to provide the customer a product that is, for their purposes, identical to the what the old one was supposed to be like. It's called "sustaining engineering."
That's hard enough, but bringing a discontinued product back into production is even harder (much, much harder to do in fact). My favorite example of this is the way NASA is basically reverse-engineering their own rocket engine designs from 1960s (such as the J-2 engine that was on the upper stages of the Saturn V moon rocket) to use in the next generation space vehicles (the J-2X, as I believe it's being called). They have old J-2's around, but the old parts and manufacturing techniques are unavailable, and (to make matters worse) they're not documented in a way that makes their principles of operation apparent (which is kind of stupid, I know--but that's a whole other discussion).
With music, though, we kind of have to do the same thing--if you don't understand the principles of operation behind the music, it's really quite difficult to put on a convincing performance, even if you follow the score literally (which is like assembling something that looks like the old rocket engine without understanding what made the old one tick--the reproduction won't work nearly as well, if at all).
The problem is that many of us (myself included) don't always think beyond a "how to play it" level of understanding written music, so we get locked into a literalist reading of what the composer writes and sometimes play with a skewed notion of what is important/unimportant. I have found that the more I learn about the way things work (whether it be music or anything else), the less I am concerned with conformity and the more I am concerned with getting the things that matter correct.
Choice of instrument key is only one part of the puzzle. Sometimes it suggests something of musical significance, and sometimes it doesn't. What matters is the music. You have to do what works for you to create the music the composer wanted, even if it means playing it on a different instrument than indicated. I don't see that as a violation of the composer's intent, but rather as an action made in support of the original intent.
Violating the composer's intent is something more along the lines of what I did in my "Blue Shades" solo (see http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=297426&t=297426), where I carelessly ignored the staccato dot on one of the notes. I say this because with a dot, I can be sure that, unless it's a misprint, the composer intended the note to sound short, because that's the only logical purpose for writing the dot. If I had to play it again, I'd find a musically meaningful way to shorten that note and give the composer's dot some meaning in my interpretation. Even though at present it still makes more musical sense to me to lengthen that note rather than shortening it, I recognize that my job is to make sense of what the composer wrote, not replace it with something I find easier to understand. I think that for the most part I did that (figured out what the composer wanted) when I played that solo, which is why I am generally pleased with how it came out and felt it was worth sharing, but I still could have done a better job in this regard (and probably in some others I'm not even aware of).
Instrument choice is another matter, because there are other factors at play with that decision than just sound. I think it's often easier to justify playing with a different-keyed instrument, because in many cases you can determine that the choice of instrument made in the written part is not really indicative of the intended sound quality and when it is indicative of the sound quality, the merits of your personal choice of instrument will (or at least should) be judged on the basis of the sound, which is dependent on far more than the choice of instrument.
I do see some value to this thread, though--not so much as a catalog of pardonable sins against the composer, which is what the title suggests, but as a set of case studies in applying musical judgment to the question of instrument choice. I think that sort of an exercise is potentially worthwhile.
(Note to Tony: Thanks for the Benade reference. It sounds like the "Beethoven-era" instrument was a statistical outlier of sorts. I guess what that really means is that merely choosing an instrument in a particular key doesn't necessarily ensure that you get the kind of sound the composer wants.)
Post Edited (2009-03-27 07:49)
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-03-27 07:06
Looking at things from the other perspective, what is the extent and nature of the evidence of major composers actively distinguishing the different pitches of clarinet by reference to tone colour? Did any of them go into print on it or leave teachings on the subject? On what would we base the view that they made such conscious informed decisions? If it turned out that there was scant evidence that any did so, that must put into doubt an approach based on seeking to honour such ostensible intentions.
For reasons given in an earlier thread, there seems to be no reason to think composers chose an A pitched bass clarinet for its tone colour as against the B flat. As between A, B flat, and C soprano clarinets that seems a more realistic proposition. But there is no point just supposing so. Research on the subject is the best way forward.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-03-27 18:41
Tony Pay wrote,
>>But, I want to say something else, about this whole thread: it's that there can be no justification, IN THE ABSTRACT, for violating a composer's intentions.
>>
I agree. As an amateur, if I played in an amateur orchestra, I'd probably have more lame excuses and fewer good defenses for deviating from a composer's intent than a professional would dare to assert. To this day, at age 60, I vacillate between thinking I should make as much music as I can as well as I can, or simply stop playing things I can't (and probably never will) play well.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-03-28 02:57
This thread came to mind while rehearsing Bartok's 3rd piano concerto tonight.
In the third movement there is a switch in the second clarinet part from bass clarinet to A clarinet. He has less than 2 seconds to make the switch and it is physically impossible. Because of this, the three measures the 2nd cl. is supposed to play are taped into my part. We, and the orchestras before us, violate the composer's intentions by doing so but real-world exigencies oblige us to do it that way so the solo passage gets played.
Speaking of that passage, it is a very fast, detached 16th-note passage which obliges the players to double-tongue. I double-tongue the passage. Some woodwinds cannot double-tongue and they slur it. Composers' intentions are violated every second somewhere because some woodwinds refuse to learn to double-tongue.
In another piece we are doing, the horn parts are in D, E, B and F but the hornists play it on F horn. They are violating the composer's intentions.
I don't mean to sound deliberately obtuse but this sort of thread bugs me.
I work closely with scores of composers every year. When my contemporary ensemble does residences I work with sometimes 20 composers in a week or two.
Every time I am given a part for A clarinet that doesn't go down to a low E I ask the composer to print out another part for Bb so I have one fewer instrument to take on tour. Not a single composer has minded.
Back when contributors to the klarinet list got into a lather when people asked about playing a passage on a clarinet different from the instrument specified, I thought I would ask the composers themselves to see what they thought. I asked many composers if they minded if their Bb parts were played on A clarinet or vice versa. Not a single composer minded, in fact some composers thought an objection to playing a part on a different instrument was, in one British composer's words, "barmy".
In 2006 in Amsterdam I performed the premiere of a clarinet concerto by an up-and-coming Dutch composer, Robin DeRaaff (http://www.nl-berkshires.org/art/deRaaff.html).
In the concerto there is a section that is not only very high (constantly around high C) but also very fast.
For the premiere I played it on the Bb clarinet, as written, but for the North American premiere and the recording I transposed the very high fast part onto Eb Clarinet, without telling Robin (since he was in Amsterdam).
When he came to Montreal to hear the second performance he exclaimed, "I noticed you put the high section onto Eb Clarinet. It sounds much better that way and you compete better with the piccolo!"
I can't help wondering - if composers don't mind if we play their parts on a clarinet other than the one specified (even, in the above case, *preferring* the change to what they wrote), where does the notion come from that a composer's instrumental indication is unchallengeably sacrosanct?
In my experience that notion definitely does not come from composers.
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-03-28 04:45
Nice post Simon. You make some excellent points in a nicely organized way.
It's true. Most (if not all) composers I have worked with exhibit a great deal of flexibility and appreciate input from the performer.
That said, perhaps the composers of the past would have treated our comments regarding the preferred instrument in much the same way had we been there to discuss it with them.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-28 05:25
I agree with Simon, but I pretty much only play music of living composers. Sometimes they will consult with me about the parts, or they change a part from one clarinet to another.
Problem is, all those dead composers are dead....
So someone who is going to play a piece by a dead composer needs to understand the idea and meaning of the music (sometimes it happens intuitively though). To play on the instrument a composer wrote for can be a very good way to do this (if the composer knew what he wanted). However if a player understands the idea of the music, and realizes what is the best way to convey that idea, they can play it on the wrong instrument while riding backwords on a bactrian camel, if that is the best way to do it....
Post Edited (2009-03-28 07:14)
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Author: Mark G Simon
Date: 2009-03-28 05:36
There's a story that Rachmaninoff once accompanied Rimsky-Korsakov to a performance of one of Rimsky's operas. At one point in the performance, Rimsky suddenly became ashen-faced. Rach. asked what was wrong and R-K explained that the clarinetist had played a certain passage on B flat clarinet when it was written for A.
Clarinetist, composer, arranger of music for clarinet ensemble
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-28 06:21
Simon Aldrich wrote:
> I can't help wondering - if composers don't mind if we play
> their parts on a clarinet other than the one specified (even,
> in the above case, *preferring* the change to what they wrote),
> where does the notion come from that a composer's instrumental
> indication is unchallengeably sacrosanct?
> In my experience that notion definitely does not come from
> composers.
Without writing another online manifesto (I'm laughing at how long my last post turned out--thanks for putting up with my verbosity, guys and gals), I think it stems from several things, really.
1.) We perfomer-types tend to think about music in terms of the method of performance--i.e., what we do. I think that composers, on the other hand, are more concerned with the end-result (the sound). Thus, performers tend to think of the score as instructions for playing, rather than as a description of the sound. And for those who look at the score as instructions, it makes sense that the measure of whether a performer succeeds in playing a piece is whether the instructions were followed.
2.) Some players don't have sufficient confidence in their own musical judgment and have a need for authority figures to make decisions for them--the composer seems to be a logical choice of authority figure.
3.) Whenever people defer to others' judgment, they are likely to become dogmatic about their choices because, having adopted those choices from someone else, they don't necessarily understand the rationale behind the choice. It's human nature to dogmatize what we don't understand.
I suggest that the question being asked in this thread really shouldn't be "When can we violate the composer's intentions?" Instead it should be "When can we infer from the choice of instrument in a score that the composer's choice reflects a desire for particular characteristics of that instrument's sound?" That seems like a more focused and relevant question to me. Instead of asking when we can get away with disregarding what the composer indicated, we ought to be asking when is it we are most obliged to follow the composer's instructions.
The thing is, the composer (or copyist/publisher, etc.) ALWAYS has to make some kind of choice of instrument, whether he/she cares that much about it or not. That's just the nature of sheet music. It's up to us to figure out to what, if anything, the composer was trying to accomplish through that choice and then make our own informed choice from there.
Post Edited (2009-03-28 06:25)
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 13:02
I remember reading many years ago that clarinet players in Italy never use A clarinets. Instead, they transpose and play everything on the B-flat (their B-flats have/had low E-flat keys). Is this still true?
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 16:46
I was invited to join some of the winds in the local community orchestra to perform the Grand Partita at a party. As luck would have it, the university's pair of basset horns is out on loan now. So we are using some alternate third and fourth clarinet parts. This must count as a violation of the composer's intentions,
and so I was surprised that the edition we are using was edited by Dan Leeson (who has strongly advocated honoring the composer's choice of instrument).
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-28 18:31
Dan Oberlin wrote:
> This must count as a violation of the
> composer's intentions,
> and so I was surprised that the edition we are using was edited
> by Dan Leeson (who has strongly advocated honoring the
> composer's choice of instrument).
While Dan is known for being outspoken on this point (that you should stick with the composer's choices whenever practical), I've never seen him advocate taking a completely inflexible point of view on this issue. As I understand it, his point of view is not that we should always use the instrument indicated in the score, but that we should presume the composer knew what he wanted when chose what he did. I think Dan's point of view is sensible--he advocates that players should use good musical judgment, just as I do.
In fact, playing the Ginastera Variaciones Concertantes solo on the C clarinet instead of the Bb (which I mentioned above) was actually Dan's idea.
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1994/10/000282.txt
My feeling is that, in general, a lot of us could stand to spend more time thinking about the music in the abstract, rather than just practicing it. These days, because I have limited practice time, I spend much more time thinking about music than actually playing it. Surprisingly, I've found that my playing has actually improved as a result. Even technical passages are easier because I've gotten to be smarter about what I do.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 18:39
An important part of what I think is misguided about this thread is its title, as Mike pointed out.
Mike's suggestion was to change it to, ""When can we infer from the choice of instrument in a score that the composer's choice reflects a desire for particular characteristics of that instrument's sound?"
My own suggestion is to change it further to "What is the relationship between a musical text and our performance of that text?"
I made some posts about this way of analysing the situation on the Klarinet list some years ago:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2002/09/000553.txt
and
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2007/02/000249.txt
Seen from this point of view, the concept of 'a composer's intentions' -- which, like authorial intention in literature, if it exists at all is a very vague concept -- turns out to be just one way of looking at just one part of the context in which we produce a performance from an existing text.
We may try to find out as much as we can about the composer, but that's only in order to discover as much as we can about the 'map-making conventions' in force for them at the moment of composition.
Moreover, when we are faithful to the text, we are faithful for our OWN good; see "Composers as teachers":
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2005/08/000322.txt
...which tries to make clear why that is so.
The decision to be faithful to the text is essentially a moral one. And the instrument specified is one aspect of the text.
Now, that doesn't mean that NOT being faithful to the text is IMMORAL.
It means that we need to approach the question of being faithful to the text as we would approach any moral problem: seriously rather than superficially.
There is a demand on us to start with the text, and then include in our creation of a 'territory' that corresponds to its 'map' not only what we currently 'feel like doing', but also what we may stretch ourselves either physically or intellectually to encompass.
That 'physical' stretching includes intelligent practice. That 'intellectual' stretching includes becoming more aware of how using a different instrument changes how a passage sounds -- that the 'good' notes (for want of a better term) of an instrument fall on different notes of a melody, for example -- and to what extent that's avoidable by more of the practice.
Some people, unaware of the notion that in a melody there ARE different sound qualities required, won't be aware that a 'good' note on an instrument might be 'bad' when used without understanding on a particular melodic note; and that Arthur Bliss (for example) wrote his Pastorale for an A clarinet -- even though the PUBLISHERS provided a Bb part to boost sales -- in order to avoid what the clarinet sounds like in B major in inexperienced hands.
If, after all that, we decide to consider changing the text; then the answer as to whether or not to go ahead doesn't get given by following any authority. Like any moral decision, an element of struggle with oneself is inevitable -- even if in some cases the struggle is minimal.
The reason why I don't have any problem with anything that Simon Aldrich wrote is that I know, from other dealings with him, that he approaches his music with a moral attitude. (That, and the fact that his examples are also relatively straightforward ones in which I myself would probably have little moral scruple in agreeing with him.)
You may feel that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here. But I say that we need to transmit to students (and of course take ourselves) an attitude to texts -- often of some of the sublimest music -- that is not sufficiently common in the world. Casually disregarding the instruction to use a particular instrument is a part of that; it also includes the casual disregarding of dynamic markings, current phrase-conventions, and even, sometimes, notes.
What's wrong is not the disregarding -- different people can come to different conclusions, after all -- it's the CASUALNESS of the disregarding, the lack of consideration that we might do better to be more serious about the problem.
Making a LIST of ANSWERS, I say, is not the way to go.
And it sounds so SUPERIOR -- yeah, they didn't know what they were doing, a lot of them, NOT LIKE WE DO.
Tony
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Author: davyd
Date: 2009-03-28 19:43
The prevailing sense seems to be that "the composer knows best", and while there may be pragmatic reasons for altering the sacrosanct text, these alterations are all varying degrees of indefensible.
But where is it written that the composer always knows best? Were/are all composers knowlegeable at all stages of their careers about the various flavors of clarinets?
What about transcribers, arrangers and orchestrators? Does their work claim the same inviolate perfection as that of a composer?
Where does the publisher come in? If the publisher provides parts for more than one instrument (Bb & A or Bb & C), who gets to decide which one is used?
The score of the Bizet Symphony in C that I own shows clarinets in C throughout. I've performed the work using two different sets of parts, one of which has the clarinets in Bb throughout, the other in Bb for I and IV but in A for II and III. What is "right"? What is "wrong"? Who gets to decide?
There may be external circumstances too. Suppose I'm playing an opera aria and the Diva wants it in a different key. Must I use the same clarinet regardless of what key that would put me in? Or may I use another one?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 20:30
Davyd wrote:
>> The prevailing sense seems to be that "the composer knows best", and while there may be pragmatic reasons for altering the sacrosanct text, these alterations are all varying degrees of indefensible.
But where is it written that the composer always knows best? Were/are all composers knowlegeable at all stages of their careers about the various flavors of clarinets?>>
That these questions are problematic is one of the reasons why analysing the situation by making the division between composer and performer, and then trying to specify the relation between them, is not a sensible division.
Better to make the division between the TEXT and the performer, and then specify THAT relationship, in all its varieties. Then some aspects of the text can be DISCOVERED by a performer to be incidental to them, and without damaging the notion that others may be CRUCIAL, DEEP AND DETERMINING.
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 22:44
I wrote:
>> Better to make the division between the TEXT and the performer, and then specify THAT relationship, in all its varieties.>>
For those not convinced, let me put it another way:
When we play music, we need not BE our personalities. (It's one of the things that I find most beautiful about the job of doing it, as I explained in the second of the links I posted.)
We rather use the bits of our personalities -- including our unconscious -- that serve the music.
That amounts to the temporary creation of new versions of ourselves.
But the same is true of composers.
Therefore, seeing ourselves just as personalities, set against the personalities of composers -- for or against -- is bound to limit the experience.
Tony
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-03-28 23:13
mrn wrote:
"We perfomer-types tend to think about music in terms of the method of performance--i.e., what we do. I think that composers, on the other hand, are more concerned with the end-result (the sound)."
I wish that were the case. It has been my experience that most current composers with which I work are more concerned with the process, not the end-result. Example - at a recent composition summer session I asked composers what they did in their composition lessons. They replied that the previous two weeks were spent learning how to construct a computer program, essentially an algorithm, which was responsible for generating the pitches, note durations, instrument assignments, tempi etc. I asked, in different words, if the end-result mattered and to a man they replied no, the essence was all in the cleverness of the algorithm, not its result.
Another, more striking, example of composers being more interested in the process than the result: I recorded a fiendishly difficult piece for solo clarinet and ensemble by Brian Ferneyhough called La Chute d'Icare (The Fall of Icarus). At a different summer residency at which Ferneyhough was teaching I offered him the recording. He politely refused it. Later I read an interview with him in which he said hearing his music performed in concert holds no interest for him. He wants only to hear at a certain point how his theories (Fibonacci series, etc) worked.
mrn continued
"Some players don't have sufficient confidence in their own musical judgment and have a need for authority figures to make decisions for them--the composer seems to be a logical choice of authority figure."
I have asked every composer from whom I have received a part for A clarinet, why did they write it for A clarinet instead of Bb (when it was not inappropriate to ask such a question of course).
It might surprise you to know that not a single composer, *not a single composer* has ever given me a reason for writing the part for A clarinet. I expected at least a couple of "they say the A clarinet sounds darker" but no, the composer usually shrugs his shoulders and says "no reason".
In my experience the composer is not always "a logical choice of authority figure".
mrn continues:
"Whenever people defer to others' judgment, they are likely to become dogmatic about their choices because, having adopted those choices from someone else, they don't necessarily understand the rationale behind the choice."
Insightful and well put. Ironically the above is one of the reasons this thread annoys me. The dogma that governs the opinions of most who object to playing a part on a clarinet different from the one specified is generated from ideological doctrine, rather than real-life experience.
The objections I keep reading are based on manufactured theories and quickly-conceived notions rather than real-life interaction with composers.
Dealing with composers all the time, I find the claims being made here regarding what a composer wants are spurious and misleading.
Mrn - I hope I am not coming across as contrary or argumentative.
Neither am I composer-bashing. On the contrary. I think they have greater concerns than "is the clarinet player playing my music on the soprano clarinet to which I arbitrarily assigned the part." After all if he writes a concert C, you are playing a concert C whether you play a D on Bb clarinet or an Eb on A clarinet. They are both soprano clarinets which, to a composer's ear, differ in timbre much less than we think.
In a rehearsal break 20 years ago, one of Canada's foremost composers walked up to me and said, unsolicited, "In instrumentation manuals much is made of the difference in timbre between A and Bb clarinets. I don't hear it. I find there is much more difference in timbre between individual players' sounds."
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2009-03-28 23:32
Simon Aldrich quoted:
> "In instrumentation manuals much is made of the difference in timbre
> between A and Bb clarinets. I don't hear it. I find there is much more
> difference in timbre between individual players' sounds."
Full ACK. I had that on the tip of my tongue while reading this thread.
Davyd mentioned arrangers. We are playing concert band arrangements exclusively (unless it's one of the very rare original compositions we have all desired players for), and there *a lot* of what the composer might have had in mind is "lost in translation", so to speak. An arranger wants to sell his works, and he's selling them best when arranging for the average concert band. So, no exotics like C or A or - gasp! - Alto clarinets - those parts go to oboes or flutes and saxes. Simply because there's a bigger chance of finding customer who have those in their lineup. And if you happen to spot that rare part for one of these instruments, it's quite probably doubled by something more mainstream.
But I digress...
--
Ben
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-29 01:30
Simon Aldrich wrote:
> mrn wrote:
> "We perfomer-types tend to think about music in terms of the
> method of performance--i.e., what we do. I think that
> composers, on the other hand, are more concerned with the
> end-result (the sound)."
>
> I wish that were the case. It has been my experience that most
> current composers with which I work are more concerned with the
> process, not the end-result.
That's a good point. I was thinking more along the lines of Mozart composing in his head or Debussy experimenting at the keyboard (or my own attempts at writing music in a "neoclassical" style), but what you're talking about is definitely true of newer composers (well, and some not-so-new ones, for that matter--John Cage comes to mind).
> mrn continued
> "Some players don't have sufficient confidence in their own
> musical judgment and have a need for authority figures to make
> decisions for them--the composer seems to be a logical choice
> of authority figure."
>
> I have asked every composer from whom I have received a part
> for A clarinet, why did they write it for A clarinet instead of
> Bb (when it was not inappropriate to ask such a question of
> course).
> It might surprise you to know that not a single composer, *not
> a single composer* has ever given me a reason for writing the
> part for A clarinet. I expected at least a couple of "they say
> the A clarinet sounds darker" but no, the composer usually
> shrugs his shoulders and says "no reason".
> In my experience the composer is not always "a logical choice
> of authority figure".
I actually don't disagree with you here. What I probably should have said was, "To them, the composer is an easy choice of authority figure." If you're going to defer to someone else, it's easy to defer the composer because the composer's already made a choice for you. It can also seem like a "safe choice" for this reason.
What I think a lot of folks don't realize, though, is that composers make this choice because it's necessary to be able to write out the part. Simply put, they choose because they have to. So they don't always (in fact, most of the time they probably don't) have a musical reason for making the choice. I know there are some composers who apparently did have their musical reasons (Richard Strauss is one name I hear a lot--I suppose Rimsky-Korsakoff must have had similar feelings), but if I had to make a bet on it, I'd bet that they're the exception, rather than the rule.
If the orchestration textbook I own (I used to take private lessons in composition) is any indication of the consensus of opinion among current composers (copyright date is 1989), they see no distinction in tone quality between the A and Bb instruments and the C instrument is considered to be obsolete. Adler (the book's author) says C clarinets are "rare."
Still, it's always worth knowing what the composer wanted in terms of sound, and if the choice of clarinet had something to do with it, I'd want to know.
> Mrn - I hope I am not coming across as contrary or
> argumentative.
Not at all.
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Author: gwie
Date: 2009-03-29 03:29
I'll second the comment on Copland's work.
The Hoe-Down from Rodeo isn't incredibly difficult on Bb (as I tell my kids in youth orchestra, just pound those E major scales until those notes fly off effortlessly), but I've always preferred playing the part on A clarinet. I think technology has made our horns so similar these days tonally anyhow that it makes very little practical difference.
In looking at the original score of his clarinet concerto, we can see that the part is written in concert pitch. I'll assume he did not really make a big deal out of what was particularly idiosyncratic to the instrument...and players like Benny could do practically anything so was there any real point to worry?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-29 09:45
Mike wrote:
>> Note to Tony: Thanks for the Benade reference. It sounds like the "Beethoven-era" instrument was a statistical outlier of sorts. I guess what that really means is that merely choosing an instrument in a particular key doesn't necessarily ensure that you get the kind of sound the composer wants.>>
I don't want to mislead you -- I think that it's probably true that early clarinets are less bright than modern ones. But in fact the whole band sounds different, and much less powerful, so one has to take the relationship between the different orchestral sections into account.
I think the point about the isolated C clarinet is that similar instruments at different pitches -- Bb and A -- weren't investigated, and so we can't judge from that research what difference another choice of instrument would have made in a Beethoven work.
But I can -- and that without going through the business of translating what I hear into cutoff frequencies in order to make a 'more scientific' judgement;-)
Tony
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-03-29 15:48
I have a realistic question about this:
If we are going to go willy-nilly over the difference in tone between Bb and A and C clarinets, should we not be rioting over Bach being played on piano? THAT is a much bigger difference, right?
And much more than just playing the SAME PITCHES on different clarinets- vocalists commonly perform songs in a totally different key than the ones written by the composer.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-03-29 16:35
"vocalists commonly perform songs in a totally different key than the ones written by the composer."
And to the annoyance of many an orchestral player.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-03-30 15:48
Tony wrote:
<<I don't want to mislead you -- I think that it's probably true that early clarinets are less bright than modern ones. But in fact the whole band sounds different, and much less powerful, so one has to take the relationship between the different orchestral sections into account.>>
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. The tuning's probably different, too, now that I'm thinking about it. I know your Mozart recording with the Academy of Ancient Music is perceptibly lower in pitch than what I expect to hear having grown up on A >= 440. I've actually grown to be quite fond of the lower tuning--it seems to add some warmth to the sound.
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Author: katzer
Date: 2009-03-30 20:46
About Tony's useage of words: "an inferior player" and "DEFECTIVE".
My father played the double bass in the Israeli Philharmonic for over 3 decades. I practically grew up in Symphony Hall. Even after he passed away I kept going to concerts 3-4 times a week (one of the perks, just got in through the musicians entrance) as well as countless rehearsals.
A lot of his colleagues were family friends. I used to discuss the programs, the artists the work with them almost every time I was there. Many of them are truly world class musicians.
Not even once did I hear such a derogatory term used to describe another person, not to mention one who plays a musical instrument. This is not to say they were not critical people. They were the most critical folks I ever met and probably ever will.
Using such words, or more precisely, the need to use such words speaks more of the person who uses them than anything else said.
Erez
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-03-30 21:19
Erez wrote:
>> Using such words, or more precisely, the need to use such words speaks more of the person who uses them than anything else said.>>
Yes, you're right, I'm a defective person, and what I write is inferior.
Tony
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-04-01 07:05
In the light of Simon Aldrich's experience, cabn I pose a specific question for Tony Pay:
Since you have worked extensively with Harrison Birtwhistle, who apart from being a well known contemporary composer is(was) also a clarinettist, can you comment on whether he expressed any definite views as to the different tonal characteristics he aims to achieve from selecting as between A and B flat (I put it this way becuase it seems obvious that the E flat and bass produce very different tonal palates to the usual "soprano" clarinets)?
Thanks
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-04-01 16:02
It's worth remembering that, in the case of most classical composers, we aren't playing on the instrument for which the wrote the part anyhow. My modern clarinet has very little in common with the clarinet for which Mozart wrote except for the apparent key signature. The fingerings are all different, the tone quality is much improved, and it's not the sound he knew. As an example, I'm also a bassoonist, and I've often imagined what it would be like to play Mozart's bassoon concerto on the bassoon for which he wrote it... No alternate fingerings, no trill keys, notes that have to be lipped into pitch, etc.. I think that every one of us have played pieces where it was obvious that the composer didn't play our instrument, as evidenced by the awkward or impossible fingerings required. They're musical compositions; not holy scripture, and I see no problem with working to improve the shortcomings of the piece.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-01 16:26
graham wrote:
<<In the light of Simon Aldrich's experience, cabn I pose a specific question for Tony Pay:>>
What a great question! I'm looking forward to Tony's answer, myself.
On the A/Bb distinction (I'm just theorizing here--I'm curious what others think about this), it would seem to me that the better player you are, the less apparent (to the listener, anyway) the difference in tone between the two instruments would become, because a good player makes the instrument sound the way he/she envisions the tone mentally.
The player perhaps notices the difference between A and Bb to a greater degree because the instrument feels different and because the same fingerings create different pitches. When I first picked up an A clarinet, for example, it was very disorienting to have every fingering produce "the wrong note." I've since gotten used to the A, so this "cognitive dissonance" doesn't exist anymore for me so much. So I wonder if our perception (as players) of the tonal difference between the two instruments has as much or more to do with this difference in chroma (same fingerings produce a different note) as it does with the actual timbral tendencies of the instruments. (I also wonder if anyone really knows the answer to this question.)
Post Edited (2009-04-01 22:33)
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-04-01 17:55
Dan wrote: "As luck would have it, the university's pair of basset horns is out on loan now. So we are using some alternate third and fourth clarinet parts. This must count as a violation of the composer's intentions..."
Any composer who writes for an instrument such as the basset horn needs to either accept that it'll be played on other instruments more often than not, or else it'll be relegated to obscurity. Probably 90% of the bands and community orchestras in the world couldn't come up with a basset horn if their existence depended on it. (Curiously, our small town community band currently has an Eb clarinet, four bass clarinets, two contra alto clarinets and a contrabass clarinet but can't find enough Bb clarinet players to fill all the seats.) There are a lot of instruments out there that have a unique intonation and timbre, but just aren't readily available and the composers have to be aware that others will be substituted if their works are to be performed regularly. E.g., bass or contrabass sax, English horn, flugelhorn, alto horn, contrabass trombone, piccolo trumpet, etc.. If we're lucky, the composer will have cued the part for another instrument, but we occasionally find works where we have to make our own decision of whether to skip it or have someone else take the part.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-04-01 18:08
Since I'm an amateur composer and clarinetist, probably I should just shut up now, but.... Reading through this thread, it's striking how we (I include myself) fall into the habit of writing "composers" as if we referred to a monolithic group, even though we also make specific exceptions for named, individual composers and often back off and warn ourselves against generalizing. We have to keep backing off and warning ourselves this way because we can't stop ourselves from generalizing. In the composers' forum on sibeliusmusic.com, we do the same thing but aim it in the other direction: Refer to clarinet players or pianists or whatever as monolithic groups, while we as composers busily bicker with each other. If there's one generalization to be made about groups of people with something in common, it is that we tend to overstate the commonality of members of other groups. We know better but we do it anyway. Our brains are wired that way.
Here on Klarinet, we know there's no such thing as "clarinet players." There's no such thing as "composers," either. Some of the sibeliusmusic.com composers, ranging in knowlege from credible to incredible (in both directions) and in skill from beginner to master, freely allow transposition of their scores and don't care if you play their clarinet music on two kazoos and a bucket-drum. Other composers of equally varied pedigree will come after you with the (verbal, one hopes) torch and pitchfork if you dare to swap out a clarinet in A for one in Bb.
With living composers, it's often possible to find an e-mail address (or at least an agent's or publisher's e-mail address) and ask. In the absence of certain knowledge of what a dead composer really intended and whether or not s/he had the musical wherewithal to claim legitimate understanding (define "legitimate" ...) of why s/he intended it, I believe in trying to follow the score even if it flies out the window, unless the result is that my intonation flies out the window with it (detached fingers fluttering along half a beat behind). But I'm not going to start holding seances to try to get Mozart to explain it all to me, because I'm pretty sure that rapping sound I hear is only the loose bracket on the storm drain banging in the wind. It seems more practical to look up what Tony Pay or Jack Brymer or someone else I respect has already written. (A general distrust of authority may be a wise philosophy, but it leads to a lot of time spent fuming instead of practicing.)
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2009-04-01 18:23)
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-04-01 21:55
If I can offer one other thought on this topic... At our band rehearsal last night, we read through a new composition by a professor at a local college. He conducted it, gave us some comments about his intent and ideas in the piece, and then asked us to make notations on our own part regarding the instrumentation, fingering problems, etc., so that he could make it as playable as possible without compromising the music. No composer is an expert on all instruments, and there are some instances where the musicians really do know better than the composer about writing a part for their particular instrument. (I'm playing bassoon for this concert and found a couple spots where the fingerings were just about impossible to play properly without a full set of roller keys on the instrument.)
In the case of the classic composers, I'm quite certain that had they known what the instruments would evolve into over the following century or centuries, they would have written the parts quite differently. As I said earlier, it's music; not sacred scripture.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-01 22:08
Graham wrote:
>> In the light of Simon Aldrich's experience, can I pose a specific question for Tony Pay: Since you have worked extensively with Harrison Birtwistle, who apart from being a well known contemporary composer is (was) also a clarinettist, can you comment on whether he expressed any definite views as to the different tonal characteristics he aims to achieve from selecting as between A and B flat?>>
No, I've never discussed this with him.
However, although he wrote most of his music for Bb clarinet, he did write his clarinet quintet, and some other pieces, for A clarinet. This might, of course, be simply because he was following in the 'tradition' of the Mozart and Brahms quintets. But perhaps not -- he knows very well that playing an A clarinet is different from playing a Bb clarinet.
There was of course a period in which he, and Maxwell Davies, wrote for a basset-clarinet in A in their pieces for the Pierrot Players, in an attempt by them and Alan Hacker to re-establish that instrument, after its invention by Stadler and its subsequent neglect even in the Mozart concerto.
But, speaking generally, there are two reasons why a composer might write for an A clarinet rather than a Bb.
#1 -- is that you might bias the performance of the part towards a less bright sound by doing so.
And yes, of course it's true that one particular player on an A clarinet might sound brighter than another particular player on the Bb. But IN GENERAL, the bias would operate.
I agree with Simon Aldrich that most contemporary composers don't have that as a priority; so actually, I don't see why he's angry with what I've written here up to now -- if he is. (He seemed to me to be.)
#2 -- is more subtle.
Because the more resonant notes of the Bb and the A clarinets fall on different concert pitch notes, playing the same music on different instruments has a different effect in TONAL MUSIC.
What it changes is the nature of the relationship BETWEEN notes. An expert player may be able to adjust that. But an inferior player may not. What they produce on the 'wrong' instrument may well be defective.
Lelia's post, underlining that we can't speak of 'composers' in the abstract, is pertinent here.
Difference #2 between the Bb and the A clarinet isn't operating in the sort of music that most contemporary composers write.
But when Mozart and Beethoven specify a clarinet, we need to read that specification against the background, not only of the clarinets of the time, but against the background of the sort of music that they were writing, and the background of the current performance conventions.
That background is the background of tonal nuance, which just isn't operating in Birtwistle's case.
But in the time of Mozart and Beethoven, the ability to produce such nuance is not only important in the music, but very much a function of the clarinet you're playing on. (That's why there were RULES about how far, as a composer, you were allowed to stray from C major on a given clarinet.) You just can't play acceptably on these instruments in extreme keys.
But you still do need to take into account the fact that the various instruments -- A, Bb, C -- sound different.
So it was for reason #1, I'd say, that Beethoven, in the slow movement of the violin concerto, sets the clarinettist a very difficult task. It was just because he wanted the different sound of the C clarinet there.
For example, there is no easy legato between B and C# on the 5-key instrument. You have to reach round to operate the C# key with your RH thumb. Also, the low B natural is a tonally deficient half-holed note without an extra key.
The mechanical solution of such problems was the beginning of instrument development. But notice -- it's no reason to change the instrument Beethoven wrote for. He had a different reason for choosing it -- namely, its tonecolour.
As a young player in the RPO, not possessing a C clarinet -- almost nobody had one in England in 1969 -- I instinctively went some way towards what I felt was Beethoven's idea, by playing the passage on the Bb rather than on the A, which is the instrument required in the rest of the concerto. Later, having found a C clarinet for myself, I recorded the Rossini overtures with the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, again to the great surprise of my colleagues.
Apropos reason #2, Eliyahu wrote:
>> My modern clarinet has very little in common with the clarinet for which Mozart wrote except for the apparent key signature. The fingerings are all different, the tone quality is much improved, and it's not the sound he knew.>>
Well, the fingerings aren't ALL different, and the tone quality may or may not be improved, I'll defer judgement.
It's still true that a Bb clarinet in D major sounds different from a C clarinet in C major, for reasons that are CONNECTED to the reasons why D major was a forbidden key for a classical Bb clarinet.
So when and if you play the Schubert Offertorium for C clarinet, soprano and orchestra, you'd be advised to follow Schubert's directions, I'd say.
Tony
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-04-03 21:52
Tony Pay wrote:
"I agree with Simon Aldrich that most contemporary composers don't have that as a priority; so actually, I don't see why he's angry with what I've written here up to now -- if he is. (He seemed to me to be.)"
Not angry with you at all.
I appreciate your posts. I don't think there is a contributor to this bb with more varied experience and insight than you. (And I, like many others, are a fan of many of your recordings. I am listening to your recording of the Spohr Nonet as I write this.)
My overblown, undue frustration over this whole Bb/A question is with those that don't have any experience with composers. In the absence of dialogue with composers some postulate that Bb/A interchangeability is an affront to the composer. This sounds noble as theory and might even make one feel virtuous for defending the composer's wishes. I contend however that dealings with composers dispel the notion of the sanctity of soprano clarinet assignment.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I go out of my way to ask composers why they write a part for A clarinet (when they don't need a low E). Not a *single* composer has ever had an answer. I think that is why I get into such a lather over this question. When you get your 8th or 9th shrug or blank stare for an answer, you realize how absurd this Bb/A discussion is. *It has nothing to do with the real world*. When I ask composers to reprint the A clarinet part in Bb and they have no problem with it, a decade of debate on this issue seems ludicrous.
I advise my students to read this bb to stay in touch with the clarinet world. When I suggest they do the Peter and Wolf excerpt on Bb *because it is patently less difficult* they get uncomfortable because they have read so much nonsense, here and on the klarinet list, about the immorality of playing a soprano clarinet part on the other soprano clarinet.
Unless one contends that composers of the past are fundamentally different that composers of the present, one must face up to the fact that Bb/A assignment is not important to composers.
Objection to Bb/A interchangeability is pie-in-the-sky, even delusional, since it disregards composers' opinions on the subject. How can one defend a composer's wish or interest without ever finding out what that wish or interest is!!?? The crux of the matter is what composers feel about Bb/A interchangeability. I learn over and over they don't care. For every composer I ask who doesn't care, there are a hundred bb contributors who write that the composer *does* care. This claim is baseless because it leaves out the opinion of the person it purports to be defending: the composer.
I am not old enough to be a curmudgeon but if I were I might say this issue is high-minded balderdash.
(You will all have to forgive me for this overwrought post. It is a result of having read posts on this subject for over a decade without weighing in.
The actual irrelevance of this subject, having come to know composers' feelings on it over two decades, has resulted in my using rather direct, blunt language. I will now go back to being civilized.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-04-03 22:10
It seems maybe a little ironic that, among all the French horn players I know, not a single one seems to change horns when the key of the horn part changes - all the horn players I actually play with play everything on an F/B-flat double horn. And from what I can tell the orchestral trumpet players in this area (Philadelphia) play almost everything on a C trumpet, sometimes using B-flat trumpets, but I don't think ever A or F instruments. I don't actually ever hear them discussing this in relation to their own instruments. (I admit I've not spent any time on any trumpet or horn bbs.)
Karl
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-04-03 23:21
On the lighter side . . .
Many years ago, I remember reading about attempts to transform a B-flat clarinet to an A by running a string through the bore. The results were nothing amazing, but it did lower the pitch! From what I've read, this was actually done on occasion, although I doubt that serious orchestral clarinetists did it. I would imagine that this altered clarinet didn't play very well in tune.
In David Pino's book mentioned below, he discusses various attempts over the years to create combination clarinets. He also discusses the string method. I couldn't get the link to copy properly, but if you do a Google search for
The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing - Google Books Result
by David Pino - 1998 - Music - 320 pages
you can read more about this on pages 214 and 215.
Also on the lighter side . . .
I remember my teacher in college telling me a story about a clarinetist who was once performing the Stravinsky Octet. It might have been Gervase de Peyer, but I'm not sure. As soon as the performance started, panic set in.
If I'm not mistaken, the score calls for both the B-flat and the A, but the performer had only taken one out with him! If I remember the story correctly, the performer did some quick transposing, and I don't imagine that it was easy. Has anyone else heard this story?
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Author: JedClampett
Date: 2009-04-08 21:16
Tony Pay wrote:
"As a young player in the RPO, not possessing a C clarinet -- almost nobody had one in England in 1969 -- I instinctively went some way towards what I felt was Beethoven's idea, by playing the passage on the Bb rather than on the A, which is the instrument required in the rest of the concerto. Later, having found a C clarinet for myself, I recorded the Rossini overtures with the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, again to the great surprise of my colleagues."
Did your colleagues at the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields end up getting a C clarinet as well?
Jed C
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-08 22:09
JedClampett wrote:
>> Later, having found a C clarinet for myself, I recorded the Rossini
>> overtures with the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, again to the
>> great surprise of my colleagues.
>>
> Did your colleagues at the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields end up
> getting a C clarinet as well?
As I recall, at the time not.
There was a particular obbligato-type bit -- not actually in one of the standard overtures, but in something else that we recorded to go on the disc -- that prompted me to make the effort to play it on a C clarinet. I'll check it out when I'm at home.
Since the thread has come alive again for a moment, I'd like to comment on what Simon Aldrich wrote:
> Unless one contends that composers of the past are fundamentally different
> than composers of the present, one must face up to the fact that Bb/A
> assignment is not important to composers.
Yes, composers of today are not the same as composers of the past, just as players of today are not the same as players of the past. Our musical environment is different from that of Stadler, which was different from that of Baermann, which was different from that of Oxenvaad. Our approach to the texts written for each of them can therefore profitably differ, because those texts are written partly in the spirit of, and partly against the spirit of their times.
As someone who spent 15 years of his life at the cutting edge of contemporary music, playing new pieces in the 70s and early 80s as principal clarinet with the London Sinfonietta, I agree that the majority of living composers aren't particularly interested in which clarinet their music is played on.
My own experience was in many ways exciting -- working directly with, as well as talking directly with Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Henze (who wrote the Miracle of the Rose for me), Copland, Goehr, Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle, Ferneyhough(!), Kurtag, Kagel, Maw and Lutoslawski, as well as the younger generation of Knussen, Benjamin, Holt, Turnage etc., has to have some impact.
However, as an intensive occupation, it was also dispiriting, and I relinquished my position with the London Sinfonietta in 1984.
Part of the reason was that I felt that what particularly interested me as a player wasn't what particularly interested many contemporary composers. I was starting to become fascinated with both HOW and WHY expression is shown on an instrument.
What I thought we mostly did in the Sinfonietta, by default, was to play with what I called 'utility espressivo'. That's a style that has all the trappings of expression (the strings played with the 'usual' vibrato, for example) but which has none of the connection with what the music is trying to SAY that is a feature of the best-played classical and romantic music -- in which canon I include pieces like Pierrot Lunaire, just to be clear.
There was no problem with music that was hard-edged and forceful, or music that was ethereal and atmospheric. But in other music, 'local nuance' seemed to be unattached to ANYTHING. It was just arbitrarily applied -- rather like the 'worst best' playing of current American style.
There were exceptions, of course -- and there still are: I just heard a wonderful chamber opera by George Benjamin called Into the Little Hill, which uses an orchestra of two bassethorns, contrabass clarinet, bass flute, cimbalom, mandolin and strings, together with two female voices, to create a soundworld that is both powerfully expressive of the story (a version of the Pied Piper) and musically interesting in its own terms. And much of the music of Alexander Goehr, and that of Kurtag -- both following the Viennese tradition -- seemed to be concerned with musical gesture.
However, I've subsequently preferred to spend more of my time in a world -- namely, that of earlier composers -- where the details of nuance have more importance.
And in that world, what clarinet you play on DOES have a greater significance.
Tony
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-09 02:08
Tony wrote:
<<Later, having found a C clarinet for myself, I recorded the Rossini overtures with the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, again to the great surprise of my colleagues.">>
Speaking of Rossini, I don't own a C clarinet, so when we played the Barber of Seville overture I played the whole thing on the A. The original part was for C most of the way through, but when the piece modulates down a minor third, it switches to the clarinet pitched a minor 3rd down, the A. The impression I had of the way the original part was constructed was that it was intended to make things easier for either the player or the copyist or both (since the key change is taken care of solely by instrument change).
The reason I say the copyist (or, perhaps more precisely, the composer in writing the original score) is that the slow introduction is in the key of E major, presumably an acoustically bad key for a C clarinet of the time because of all the sharps. If you have to have an A clarinet on hand for the end anyway and you have ample time to switch to the C for the middle section, why isn't the intro scored for the A where you'd only have one sharp to contend with? The only real advantage I could see to scoring the intro for C is that whoever was writing out the part didn't have to think about transposition to do it that way (you get a similar benefit from doing a key change with an instrument switch--just copy the same notes you wrote for the C instrument over again verbatim). I wonder if that's really a viable explanation or if there's something about Rossini's clarinet choices I don't know.
It didn't seem to me that the switch between A and C instruments near the end was intended to cause a change in timbre since the character of the music doesn't really change (it's the exact same melody, just in a different key). I could be wrong, though. I'm not exactly an expert on Rossini.
Since I had to choose between Bb or A for the C clarinet parts, I chose to play the whole thing on the A because it made the runs smoother (two flats are better than three sharps in my book), which is what I figured Rossini would have wanted. Of course, if I had had a C instrument I'd have played it on that--that would have been even easier--but I don't own one, so I tried to make the best of things with what I had.
Post Edited (2009-04-09 02:13)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-09 10:16
Mike wrote:
>> It didn't seem to me that the switch between A and C instruments near the end was intended to cause a change in timbre since the character of the music doesn't really change (it's the exact same melody, just in a different key). I could be wrong, though. I'm not exactly an expert on Rossini.>>
...and:
>> Since I had to choose between Bb or A for the C clarinet parts, I chose to play the whole thing on the A because it made the runs smoother (two flats are better than three sharps in my book), which is what I figured Rossini would have wanted. Of course, if I had had a C instrument I'd have played it on that--that would have been even easier--but I don't own one, so I tried to make the best of things with what I had.>>
I'd say that where you're 'coming from' in these paragraphs is consonant with my own attitude -- including the fact that perhaps you wouldn't necessarily obey Rossini's instructions to the letter, even if you had all the instruments:
>> ...the slow introduction is in the key of E major, presumably an acoustically bad key for a C clarinet of the time because of all the sharps. If you have to have an A clarinet on hand for the end anyway and you have ample time to switch to the C for the middle section, why isn't the intro scored for the A where you'd only have one sharp to contend with?>>
That's because the important thing isn't the conclusion you come to; the important thing is how you ARRIVE at it.
It's for precisely that reason that I said before that obeying or disobeying a musical text is a moral issue.
The great pianist and scholar Charles Rosen, in a book described here:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2004/05/000362.txt
...put the matter rather well. He wrote:
"It is the moral duty of a performer to choose what he thinks is the musically superior version, whatever the composer's clearly marked intention--it is also the moral responsibility of a pianist to try to convince himself that the composer knew what he was doing."
The two halves of this dichotomy speak to us as moral beings, telling us that there is no easy answer. We have to engage with each case on its own merits -- and for ourselves.
Another way of saying it is that you can do what you like -- but that you must not underestimate the difficulty of finding out what you REALLY like.
Thomas a Becket, in T S Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, tempted by the fourth tempter to resist the King in order to attain sainthood (via martyrdom), says:
Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
By the way, just as composers are all different -- and different people at different times, too; it's surely possible that Rossini sometimes cared which clarinet you used, even though sometimes he didn't -- the same is true of students. Even though, on the whole, taking the text seriously is the attitude that needs support in the musical world at the moment, it's still true that someone who slavishly (righteously?) and mechanically OBEYS THE TEXT may profitably be encouraged to loosen up.
It all depends.
Tony
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:03
Simon makes a very fine point about the Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf..I have never been able to play it on the A with the conviction I do on the Bb clarinet. It just simply fits the hands better on the Bb...
However, from a timbral point of view most people do not hear a difference from the A to the clarinet. Alot of classical players cannot tell ACDC from Led Zep either...
In fact, I believe most conductors could not tell unless gifted with an extremely sensitive ear. ...
Fine players can do much to "temper" the timbre and even make an A clarinet sound more like the Bb...however even Stockhausen is old hat now. (His wife Suzanne Sommers keeps in line quite well..
.. In fact Stockhausen has spent a lot of time with his wife who is a very fine clarinetist in discussing the finer points of timbral differences between the different clarinets.
The discussion could even further be taken on the differences between reeds in color and sound..and mouthpieces. No doubt a player can find a mouthpiece that matches the A better to his Bb than the one he uses on his Bb...!!! I have not gone that far though...
David Dow
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-04-10 01:16
David,
I agree with you on some of the points you raise regarding clarinet issues, but I don't think that Stockhausen is married to Suzanne Sommers (the sex kitten)....if so, given his age, he would have died before 2007.... I think you mean Suzanne Stephens who was his muse for the Harlequin series.
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Author: JedClampett
Date: 2009-04-10 01:17
How about playing Richard Strauss works only on a German system clarinet and Ravel on a French instrument?
The difference between the two is greater than A-Bb one...
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:20
No..not the star of TV and screen..a different one. I think you should check wiki or even Grove.
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:22
Sorry Suzanne Stephens...I always got her name confused.
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:31
Oh well..it looks like Stockhausen has been married at least twice and has 17 grandchildren. So on his ladies is a clarinetist I know for sure. Remember Sirius.
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:32
Here is the link on Sirius..
http://www.stockhausen.org/tape_loops.html
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:35
http://home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/sirius.htm
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 01:42
Stockhausen clarinet works on amazon..
/www.amazon.com/Karlheinz-Stockhausen-Freundschaft-Friendship-Traum-Formel/dp/B00000E34D/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1239327689&sr=1-1
David Dow
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-10 13:19
Tony Pay -
"It's still true that a Bb clarinet in D major sounds different from a C clarinet in C major, for reasons that are CONNECTED to the reasons why D major was a forbidden key for a classical Bb clarinet.
So when and if you play the Schubert Offertorium for C clarinet, soprano and orchestra, you'd be advised to follow Schubert's directions, I'd say."
Now I can't help thinking of the Schubert Octet with those runs and scales in thirds and various jollities in D major for the Bb clarinet... please don't tell me you played them on the C!
On the other, er, hand, the movement for C doesn't seem to be on a C to make things any easier for the fingers, does it?
I can identify far too easily with your remarks on 'utility espressivo' and can assure you that it's alive and well in continental European new music ensembles ;-)
Which reminds me that there's a Sciarrino ensemble piece which I play on the A instead of the Bb because he wrote a multiphonic for full-Boehm which runs all the way through the piece. On the other hand I don't think anyone is going to be able to transpose Rebecca Saunders's A clarinet music. Or even play it on German system.
As you say, it all depends...
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-04-10 14:46
Oliversudden,
I certainly play the parts in C in the Schubert Octet on the C clarinet.
Why wouldn't one do this?
Is there a reason not to?
Schubert is certainly a master when asking for specific clarinets and understanding their tonal characteristics.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-10 15:11
Oliver wrote:
>> It's still true that a Bb clarinet in D major sounds different from a C
>> clarinet in C major, for reasons that are CONNECTED to the reasons why D
>> major was a forbidden key for a classical Bb clarinet.
>
> Now I can't help thinking of the Schubert Octet with those runs and scales
> in thirds and various jollities in D major for the Bb clarinet... please
> don't tell me you played them on the C!
I played this piece a lot on a 9-keyed Bb clarinet and a 6-keyed C clarinet, both with the Academy of Ancient Music Chamber Ensemble and Hausmusik. There is no time to switch to the C for those passages in the first movement, so you have to do the awkward B/C# slides in both directions at speed -- and the passage in thirds, to make matters even more tricky, in octaves with the first violin.
It's not so bad sliding from B to C#, because the slide is downwards onto the second note; but round the other way is then 'uphill'. What I did was to put a blob of araldite further down the C# touchpiece. That doesn't affect the B to C#; but when you have to go from C# to B you reach farther up the key in order to start with your finger on the blob, and going to the B is then 'downhill' too.
I never saw a clarinet designed that way -- a suitably shaped metal key would do the trick -- but it's a fairly simple modification to make.
(Another way round it is to get used to playing the C# with the RH thumb, but I never practised that for long enough to know whether it would in the end become routine at speed.)
Of course, as music became more complicated and chromatic, these sorts of problems became more extreme; and instruments evolved to cope, as we've seen.
Tony
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-04-10 15:57
Dileep said:
"I certainly play the parts in C in the Schubert Octet on the C clarinet.
Why wouldn't one do this?
Is there a reason not to?"
Perhaps. Not so much a "reason not to" as much as expunging the heresy of playing the movement on Bb clarinet.
As Tony mentioned, there were rules in the classical period which governed which clarinet should to be used, depending on the key. A lot has been mentioned, here and elsewhere, about how keys such as D major were "forbidden" on Bb clarinet. A workbook belonging to one of Mozart's students has Mozart's handwriting in the margin, instructing the student that clarinets should only play in C or F major.
Mozart had in his possession at the time of his death a table indicating which clarinet was to be used according to what the concert key was.
If Schubert were simply "following the rules" by assigning the C major movement to the C clarinet, *not because of the tonal characteristics of the instrument but because D major was thorny for the Bb clarinet* then one could say that since this C clarinet assignment was done for secretarial reasons (the rules) and since D major is no longer a problem for Bb clarinet, one is not doing anything immoral by playing it on Bb clarinet. In other words, because of the rules, he did not choose the C clarinet for its sound but for its ease of playability in C major. If D major had not been a problem for the clarinet in its infancy, perhaps Schubert would not have put the C major movement on C clarinet. That last sentence is admittedly empty conjecture. What is not conjecture is that composers, even into the romantic period, had the clarinet assignment imposed on them, to a certain degree, because of the technical limitations of the still-developing clarinet (ie they were not choosing the clarinet because of its tonal characteristics but because they knew certain keys imposed the assignment of one clarinet over the others).
"Schubert is certainly a master when asking for specific clarinets and understanding their tonal characteristics."
I love Schubert. Yes he is a master, but "a master when asking for specific clarinets and understanding their tonal characteristics."?
How do we know? What if he were simply following the rules?
I don't mean to sound like a hair-splitting smart-ass making these points. I simply think your question cuts to the quick on one important notion:
Classical and romantic composers made their clarinet assignments on clerical orders (ie The movement is in E major. The guidelines dictate I score the part for A clarinet).
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 18:39
Didn't Stockhausen say he was from Sirius...? I believe in that star system at least.
David Dow
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-10 18:42
Beam me up Stocky...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/oct/13/classicalmusicandopera
David Dow
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-10 20:41
Tony:
"I never saw a clarinet designed that way -- a suitably shaped metal
key would do the trick -- but it's a fairly simple modification to make."
I don't know if you've seen the Backofen clarinet from 1825 in the Edinburgh collection? Not sure if this is exactly the thing you're talking about but it seems like it might facilitate that kind of passage...
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/ugw/ucjd0108x027a_s.jpg
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/ugw/ucjd0108x028_s.jpg
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk/euchmi/ugw/ugwf1h.html
Someone once suggested to me taking some of the Bs with the trill key. I'm afraid that just moved the problem from my finger to my brain!
Simon:
"I love Schubert. Yes he is a master, but "a master when asking for specific clarinets and understanding their tonal characteristics."?
How do we know? What if he were simply following the rules?"
I suppose that if he'd been just 'following the rules' he would have written for clarinet in C in the Octet, at least in its F major movements - the 'rules' would say that written G major is fine in itself but once you go to the dominant things will get very nasty indeed for the left little finger, and so it proves. I don't have Tony's experience of course but I suspect that Schubert didn't have much of an idea about the mechanics of the instrument. (I do also have Eric Hoeprich's writings on the subject to back that up - I'm not just judging from my own rudimentary fumblings on period instruments.) If he'd written the variation movement for clarinet in Bb it wouldn't have had anything significantly hairier than he already wrote for Bb in the other movements...
But the music, well, it doesn't get much better than that does it? Are we not going to play the Octet and Shepherd on the Rock just because they're hard work?
Still, if someone came to me with a piece where they wanted my little fingers to do what they have to do in the Schubert Octet I would probably have some suggestions to make... :-/
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Author: Dileep Gangolli
Date: 2009-04-10 23:14
While I use the modern C clarinet for the theme and variations movement in the Octet, I never thought of the issues around playing it on the period instrument.
Assuming that Schubert did not write for a virtuoso player/builder (Stadler/Lotz) then the issues that are being discussed above become far more important in how the piece was first performed.
Who as the clarinetist in the premiere of the Octet (Beer perhaps?). I am assuming that the violinist was Schupanzig, but please correct me if I am wrong.
Is there any historical account of the premiere performance of the Octet or was it meant as hausmusik?
Great posts that have led us to this place! Thank you!
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-10 23:21
It was commissioned by this chap:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Troyer
Wikipedia doesn't tell us if he had an extra attachment on his C# key. Or three lungs for the Adagio. ;-) Oo, I didn't know his boss was the Archduke Rudolf...
I was likewise under the impression that Schuppanzigh performed in the 'original cast'. The violin part's no picnic either. And the horn part is of course for the non-valved variety.
Post Edited (2009-04-10 23:23)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-10 23:44
Simon wrote:
>> If Schubert were simply "following the rules" by assigning the C major movement to the C clarinet, *not because of the tonal characteristics of the instrument but because D major was thorny for the Bb clarinet* then one could say that since this C clarinet assignment was done for secretarial reasons (the rules) and since D major is no longer a problem for Bb clarinet, one is not doing anything immoral by playing it on Bb clarinet. In other words, because of the rules, he did not choose the C clarinet for its sound but for its ease of playability in C major.>>
I'd say that though D major is LESS of a problem on a modern clarinet, it doesn't have the naturalness of sound that C major does.
Of course, the 'rule' about not writing in D major was made in the first place as a guide to composers because D major on an old clarinet, particularly in the hands of a less expert player, sounds less natural than C major. So, I think I'd say that to call those sorts of rule 'secretarial' fails to include the musical function that they had.
And though an expert player can minimise the difference between D and C major on a modern clarinet, for me at least it's still there -- and more so, again, in the hands of a less expert player.
So there are two components to the difference between the C clarinet and the Bb clarinet in a C major passage. The first is the difference I just outlined, and the second is the difference in timbre of the instruments themselves.
By the way, I didn't say that it's immoral to play a C clarinet part on the Bb clarinet. I said that the decision of whether or not to do so is a moral one, which is another thing.
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-10 23:54
Oliver wrote:
>> I don't know if you've seen the Backofen clarinet from 1825 in the Edinburgh collection?>>
No, I hadn't -- thanks for that.
So, invented independently by me, c1985:-)
Tony
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-11 01:03
According to Stockhausen the people who inhabit the star system Sirius major are very musical. Transposition comes more naturally to these more highly attuned beings.
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-11 07:52
> According to Stockhausen the people who inhabit the star system
> Sirius major are very musical. Transposition comes more
> naturally to these more highly attuned beings.
As seen, for example, in the different versions of In Freundschaft. :-)
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-04-11 16:49
Dileep said:
"I certainly play the parts in C in the Schubert Octet on the C clarinet.
Why wouldn't one do this?
Is there a reason not to?"
Considering the temperature of some halls, there is a pragmatic reason not to.
In 2008 one of my chamber groups did a Canadian tour of the Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time. Playing in many halls reminded me of the fact that, especially here in Canada, halls are often under-heated, especially concert halls in universities. I played in a hall in Calgary - a great hall with excellent facilities and acoustics. Despite the fact the thermostat was set at 27 degrees Celsius (81 F) the temperature in the hall was 16 C (60 F) because of the air circulation in the hall. Halfway through the Debussy Rhapsodie (which opened some of the programs) my instrument was peeing on me from most of its toneholes and pitch was hard to keep up.
Chamber music halls and concert spaces (at least in Canada) are more often too cold than too warm.
My orchestra did Tchaik 2 recently on tour. I did the last movement on C clarinet since it is scored for C clarinet. The last movement opens with the two bassoons and 2 clarinets. My C clarinet, which plays at pitch when warmed up, was way under the pitch of the bassoons and 2nd (Bb) clarinet for all the concerts.
My orchestra just did a tour which included the third Bartok Piano Concerto and Dvorak 7. Three of the churches in which we played were freezing. Clarinet changes in both pieces were uncomfortable because of the flatness of the cold instruments. The 2nd mvt of the Dvorak starts with a clarinet solo, once again with warmed-up (maybe even sharp) bassoons and a 2nd oboe part in the low register. It is not a good feeling starting that solo slightly under pitch.
My point is that picking up a cold C clarinet even in a warm hall, with no time to warm the pitch up, can often do the music a disservice if the instrument is noticeably flat (a real-world consideration that unfortunately often overrides other, more important, considerations).
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-12 09:42
Tony -
Did you have the basset bits of the basset on, or just the normal A-clarinet bits? (I presume you weren't at that stage playing a basset after the Riga programme design with the bulb on the end... that would have looked a bit odd in a Schubert orchestra!)
Do you find that the 'modern' C clarinets now available are rather a lot better in terms of blending with 'normal' instruments than they were even 10 years ago? I do know quite a few orchestral players who now use them as a matter of course in Berlioz/Strauss/Mahler who wouldn't have dreamed of doing so back then. I wonder though if it's because attitudes to sound are just that little bit more flexible, or if the instruments are better. Or both...
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-04-12 12:22
Simon..
Why not just get a slightly shorter barell for the C clarinet and once you are warmed up change to the regular barrell at an appropriate moment?
David Dow
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2009-04-12 15:54
David asked:
"Why not just get a slightly shorter barell for the C clarinet and once you are warmed up change to the regular barrell at an appropriate moment?"
I did exactly that. I have a short barrel that plays too sharp when the C clarinet is warmed up. I used that short barrel but it was still too flat. When the instrument is cold and the bassoons are warm, not even a short barrel can bring you up to their pitch right away.
------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich
Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-04-12 16:23
I was playing my standard A=430 basset clarinet, made in 1984 (before the Poulin article was published), which has a straight design ending in a normal bell. It's based on a Viennese clarinet by Kaspar Tauber in Nick Shackleton's collection (doubtless now in Edinburgh). There is no basset extension; the construction is integral.
You write:
>> Do you find that the 'modern' C clarinets now available are rather a lot better in terms of blending with 'normal' instruments than they were even 10 years ago?>>
I don't know, because I've never tried a C clarinet more modern than mine. I own two, both around 50 years old; one is a Kohlert and the other a Selmer Console, which is what I usually use. But I don't play in modern orchestras very much, so it sees the light of day relatively seldom; whereas my Proff and Piatet C clarinets are constantly on the go.
Tony
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-04-12 20:04
> There is no basset extension; the
> construction is integral.
I see. A teacher of mine in Sydney (Peter Jenkin - you might know him?) had a Daniel Bangham A which worked as a basset by changing not that many bits - that's what I was imagining.
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The Clarinet Pages
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