 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2009-04-29 22:52
Hi,
Is there anyone who takes the Scherzando section (chromatic staccato melody in) at crotchet=72? Every performance I hear of this takes it significantly faster.
But, there's no indication of it going faster. In fact, Debussy is quite specific that he wants 'meme mouvement' as the previous 'moderement anime' (crotchet at 72). He could be writing this to say that the two four crotchet is the same as the the four four. But there is no instruction to get faster.
Thoughts?
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Author: Ryder
Date: 2009-04-30 00:52
I have never actually heard it played at 72. It is usually allways played faster. I'm not sure if we are looking at the same place though. If we are looking at the scherzando four measures after the meme mouvt, i take it around 115. Stanley Drucker's recording (my personal favorite) is about 120.
____________________
Ryder Naymik
San Antonio, Texas
"We pracice the way we want to perform, that way when we perform it's just like we practiced"
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-30 01:58
Debussy didn't believe in metronome marks. He only put them in because the publisher put him up to it.
I have often wondered whether Debussy, disgusted with having to provide metronome marks in the first place, might have just pulled the numbers out of thin air (without using a metronome).
I think most people take it faster than 72 bpm because it's hard to sound sufficiently "scherzando" at 72. I think the key with this piece is to follow the words Debussy wrote (in this case, "moderement anime" and "scherzando"), because those best reflect what Debussy was after. In other words, the words matter more than the numbers. As long as what you do makes musical sense in light of what Debussy wrote, I think Debussy would approve.
"You know what I think about metronome marks: they're right for a single bar, like 'roses, with a morning life'. Only there are 'those' who don't hear music and who take these marks as authority to hear it still less! But do what you please." --Claude Debussy (to his publisher)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-04-30 06:06
One could see the Scherzando as a tempo indication too (even though no metronome mark is provided). The pianist could play "meme movement" at 72, but then the clarinet speeds up at Scherzando. I usually start the first beat of the Scherzando slightly UNDER tempo, and then accelerate over two bars. This brings out a very Scherzando character and speeds the piece up a bit for the following section. I hope Debussy would be satisfied with my solution!
"Bonjour Claude! Qu'est-ce que tu pense... ?"
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2009-05-19 04:22
rmrn wrote:
Debussy didn't believe in metronome marks. He only put them in because the publisher put him up to it.
I have often wondered whether Debussy, disgusted with having to provide metronome marks in the first place, might have just pulled the numbers out of thin air (without using a metronome).
"You know what I think about metronome marks: they're right for a single bar, like 'roses, with a morning life'. Only there are 'those' who don't hear music and who take these marks as authority to hear it still less! But do what you please." --Claude Debussy (to his publisher)
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I just noticed this.
While it is certainly more important to make "the words matter more than the numbers", it would seem highly implausible that a composer such as Debussy would self-sabotage his own compositions by giving his publishers (however grudgingly) inaccurate tempo marks. This, even in the light of contempt for such requests for a perceived "strictness", seems a rather self-destructive thing to do.
I remember speaking with Pierre Boulez about Debussy's tempi about an orchestral score (Jeux I believe), and specifically about the Rhapsodie at another (wish I had asked about the quarter = 72 sections!).
The Boulez/Ansermet/Debussy linage is one of the most undeniably strong connections in all of music. Based on my conversations with Boulez, both Ansermet and Boulez understood Debussy's feelings toward the subject of MM markings but in context of what they already knew Debussy thought of them. They understood that the tempi in printed scores, although suggestive, were certainly not to be disregarded.
Gregory Smith
http://www.gregory-smith.com
Post Edited (2009-05-19 04:23)
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-19 10:18
The thing is that there isn't a metronome marking for the Scherzando itself - the 72 is already there for the Modérément animé and then there's the crotchet=crotchet a bit further down the track.
72 is already a bit slow for the Modérément animé but not catastrophically so (he's certainly emphasised the moderateness of the tempo!). Where it really doesn't work is for the later Scherzando - but the 72 itself is sort of ancient history by then - it originates a couple of pages (and a couple of tempo changes) back and it's important to note that he doesn't restate it at that point. (Like the speed-limit signs on French roads with 'rappel' under them... )
The thing is, the chromatic melody in quavers is already in the piano/flute just after figure 6 so the tempo should probably be pretty much the same as it was there. But if the tempo has flowed on just a bit and if figure 6 is just a hair faster than figure 5 then it's no great problem. He's said même mouvement twice so there shouldn't be a jolt, and it should be roughly the same speed the modérément animé was, but I don't think he would have expected anyone to stick rigidly to 72 for the chromatic quavers.
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2009-05-19 11:21
"...but I don't think he would have expected anyone to stick rigidly to 72 for the chromatic quavers.
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Nor do I if my last sentence gave that impression. I was was referring to the "suggestive" power of Debussy's own language - musical or otherwise.
Gregory Smith
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-05-19 22:00
Greg Smith wrote:
<<While it is certainly more important to make "the words matter more than the numbers", it would seem highly implausible that a composer such as Debussy would self-sabotage his own compositions by giving his publishers (however grudgingly) inaccurate tempo marks.>>
I don't think he intended to give inaccurate tempo marks. That's not what I was suggesting at all.
What I was suggesting was that perhaps Debussy did not bother to check his tempo indications against a known reliable metronome, but either estimated the tempos in his head based on experience (I mean, we all have some idea of what MM 72 is like, or MM 120, etc. based on experience) or unwittingly used a faulty metronome and didn't bother double-check the results.
Sabotage is a deliberate act. If the tempo indication here is "incorrect" (whatever that means), I don't think it's because Debussy intentionally wrote in an incorrect tempo. I'd have a very hard time believing that, just as you would.
He might have been a little careless about it, though, especially since one would not expect Debussy himself, when performing this piece, to pull out a metronome and make sure he was following the indicated tempo.
I can imagine him potentially singing a few bars and then saying to himself, "Well, that sounds like it's about 72," writing it in to make the publisher happy, and then forgetting about it. It doesn't take away anything from the man's genius--nor does it mean that he was doing it out of spite--it just means that strict adherence to precise numerical tempos was simply not a high priority to him.
Neither do I think that the written indications are complete rubbish. They do provide some indication of the composer's thoughts, and I'm a strong believer in delivering what the composer wanted. Nonetheless, given what Debussy said about metronome marks, it seems that what he wanted was for the performer to latch onto the musical ideas in the work and allow for some flexibility in tempo in order to express those ideas.
If I am understanding what Debussy said about metronome marks correctly, his concern was that people would devote too much attention to the metronome marks and play too robotically as a result. My understanding is that Debussy expected the performer to take the MM markings with a grain of salt and thought that they potentially did more harm than good.
I think the message to take away from this is that if you find yourself having difficulty resolving a conflict between the instruction to play "Scherzando" and the instruction to play M.M. 72, Debussy would most likely prefer you err on the side of "Scherzando" than to err on the side of the metronome mark. Based on your post, it sounds like you and I are probably in agreement on that.
Incidentally, I have a lot of respect for Boulez--he's one of the conductors whose recordings I listen to the most. I would be very interested to hear what Boulez has to say about this piece and what to do with the tempos.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-05-19 22:11
Mike wrote:
>> Incidentally, I have a lot of respect for Boulez--he's one of the conductors whose recordings I listen to the most. I would be very interested to hear what Boulez has to say about this piece and what to do with the tempos.>>
I once played it with Boulez conducting. We took it faster than 72, and without discussion.
Tony
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2009-05-20 05:12
Of course one would have to pretty much unnaturally force themselves to play the Scherzando at 72 simply because it would be darn near impossible to make it sound Scherzando. That's why it's always never a good idea to take fanatical, reductionist approaches to music-making (and especially, in this case, to music of Debussy).
Now, anyone want to venture a guess as to why 5th after the final un piu reteneu is almost always played dotted quarter equals quarter when Debussy wrote nothing to indicate to do so - in fact went to the trouble to write out the rhythmic modulation (augmentation/diminution) so as to make explicit that the 5th measure NOT be played that way?
Now there's a case for literal interpretation. Or not?
Gregory Smith
Post Edited (2009-05-20 05:47)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-05-20 07:51
Gregory Smith wrote:
>> Now there's a case for literal interpretation. Or not?>>
Yes.
Another example is the ascending passage of triplet crotchets in the piano part of Brahms op. 114, first movement, bars 22-23. I don't think I've ever heard a performance that took advantage of the 'release' on bar 24 -- or, not one that I wasn't playing in, anyway:-)
Tony
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-20 08:00
> Now, anyone want to venture a guess as to why 5th after the
> final un piu reteneu is almost always played dotted quarter
> equals quarter when Debussy wrote nothing to indicate to do so
> - in fact went to the trouble to write out the rhythmic
> modulation (augmentation/diminution) so as to make explicit
> that the 5th measure NOT be played that way?
>
> Now there's a case for literal interpretation. Or not?
Unless Debussy happens to have made a piano roll in which he changes speed on that barline I'd also be in favour of playing the rhythm he wrote as a general principle ...
Also important (even more so?): as far as I know the D natural and E flat in that bar (the clarinet's final entry, sixth bar from the end) are wrong and should be D sharp and E natural (again). Debussy wrote a redundant natural on the second of the Es which was misprinted as a flat and the natural was added to the D to 'correct' the problem of having an E flat after a D sharp.
At least that's Graham Mackie's highly persuasive view on the subject in the Chester edition. (Debussy wrote D#-E-D#-E in the autograph, and it's printed in the orchestral score. Which you can find at IMSLP: http://imslp.org/wiki/Premi%C3%A8re_Rapsodie_(Debussy%2C_Claude) )
Post Edited (2009-05-20 08:02)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-05-20 19:25
Gregory Smith wrote:
<<Now, anyone want to venture a guess as to why 5th after the final un piu reteneu is almost always played dotted quarter equals quarter when Debussy wrote nothing to indicate to do so - in fact went to the trouble to write out the rhythmic modulation (augmentation/diminution) so as to make explicit that the 5th measure NOT be played that way?
Now there's a case for literal interpretation. Or not?>>
I agree. The discrepancy between what Debussy wrote and what is commonly played is pretty glaring.
I think the reason why people play it the way they do is because of the way the four bars of piano part that precede this measure are written. It's written in 3, but because it's full of dotted quarter notes (and there are 4 measures), the listener (and at this point the clarinetist is a listener, too) is likely to hear it in 4 (or 2). At least, I had always heard it in 4 (based on the recordings) until I got my own score to the piece and realized the whole passage was actually in 3.
Before I had read the score, I had assumed that what the clarinet played there was a dotted quarter followed three eighths, rather than a quarter followed by a beat of eighth-note triplets (as written). And to this day, the recordings all still sound to me like this is what they are playing--on some recordings they even seem to give a slight metric accent the second note of the triplet, thus strengthening the illusion.
In other words, to me the recordings sound like: Rest 2--- & 4 & | One (in 4/4 time)
Whereas the score says: Rest 2 Trip-uh-let | One (in 3/4 time)
So what we hear from the clarinet in the recordings is something that sounds like a faster echo of the last 4 bars played by the piano. (which might explain the prevalence of D natural and Eb here, since that makes the clarinet line move by a whole step over the last two triplets, as the piano part does in the bar before)
However, what Debussy wrote more resembles the rhythm in just the first bar of the 4 bar piano passage--just decorated with a grace note on beat 2 and an expansion of beat 3 into (relatively fast) triplets. (this also makes the choice of playing D# and E natural here make a little bit more sense, too, since apparently the idea is not to mimic the piano part, but to emphasize that what is happening here harmonically is a tritone substitution of the dominant 7th chord--if you pay close attention to the piano part, this is the first chord of a V7-I 6/4-I cadence, except that the V7 is replaced with the chord a tritone away, a favorite trick of jazz musicians--after all, this is the spot where we leave Debussy-land and hit a triumphant tonic chord to end it all)
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Author: oliver sudden
Date: 2009-05-20 20:15
Since I'm feeling a little naughty this evening I might even suggest that the time-honoured D#-E-D-Eb misprint might even have contributed to the practice of playing the beginning of the final clarinet entry so slowly: the misprint suggests a harmony that needs more time to register with the listener than the notation allows.
Debussy's original draft had a minim instead of the crotchet rest followed by a crotchet. Which points even more in the direction of the quaver triplet being essentially ornamental...
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