 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: William
Date: 2009-08-26 14:37
....the question for discussion.
I suffer from STS (slow tongue syndrome) and although I have developed multiple tonguing skills to comphensate for this genetic malady, they serve me well mainly in ensemble situations--tutti articulated passages, etc--and are not refined enough to be displayed in solo literature. For reference, I cite the various editions of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A, some of which contain overly articulated (imho) passages that I simply cannot do at musical tempo. So--my question--is it more important to play the "correct" written articulations, but at a slower than musical tempo or play a more Mozartian tempo with "incorrect" articulations?? What do you think??
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-08-26 14:53
Publications of the Mozart concerto are very inconsistent with regard to articulations. To my knowledge, there is no complete autograph copy of the Concerto (if I am wrong, someone please point me in the right direction to view it).
If you listen to literally any recording of the Concerto you will find the performer adds slurs, often liberally, where there are none in the score.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-08-26 14:57
One of my earlier teachers, Eric Simon, who himself has a pretty decent published edition of the Mozart, told me that since it is not clear what Mozart himself wanted in articulations that it is OK to do whatever you feel is musical. He also added that if you have a fast and clean tongue you can articulate more but if you don't you should put in more slurs. Every edition adds their own preference so there is no one correct way. Every teacher I studied it with made different suggestions of what and where to articulate. Personally I don't like to hear too much articulation in the Mozart, I prefer a more smooth lyrical style but that's just a personnel preference. Play it clean and at a decent tempo and just articulate what you feel is musical and comfortable. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-08-26 15:03
Ed Palanker wrote:
> One of my earlier teachers, Eric Simon, who himself has a
> pretty decent published edition of the Mozart, told me that
> since it is not clear what Mozart himself wanted in
> articulations that it is OK to do whatever you feel is musical.
Are you sure he said that? There is historical context as to what would be acceptable practice during that time - he used such information I'm sure in his own edition of the Mozart. "Anything goes as long as it's musical" I think is way to broad a generalization if you want to play the piece with some semblance of Mozartean musicality.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: reedwizard
Date: 2009-08-26 15:35
William,
I am just curious you said your tongue was slow due to slow tongue syndrome, a 'genetic malady', have you had this confirmed by tests? I only ask because hypothyroidism is known to cause a thickening of the tongue and slowing of the articulation. I would urge you to have your thyroid levels checked otherwise.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mrn
Date: 2009-08-26 15:37
What I was taught was that there is really no such thing as "correct" and "incorrect" articulations with Mozart because Mozart didn't write prescriptive articulation marks. Most of the articulation marks you see in published editions were added by editors.
My (admittedly imperfect) understanding is that Mozart himself pretty much only wrote in slurs and those slurs aren't really articulation marks, per se, but phrase marks to indicate where phrases begin and end. And even in those cases, Mozart only wrote them in where he felt they were necessary in order to deviate from the natural metric rhythm of the bar.
I think the basic idea behind articulating Mozart is that if you get the phrasing right, you can simply articulate in a way that sounds musically natural in that context.
Tony Pay's "Phrasing in Contention" article on this website explains how to think about phrasing in a classical-era way:
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/Phrasing.html
Post Edited (2009-08-26 15:41)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-08-26 15:42
mrn wrote:
> I think the basic idea is that if you get the phrasing right,
> you can simply articulate in a way that sounds musically
> natural in that context.
Which, of course, is the hard part. "simply articulate" in context of the piece is not the same as making it sound musical. Determining the context is (at least for me) non-trivial.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2009-08-26 16:28
I think we can ALL agree that there are dumb editing decisions with regard to articulation throughout printed music no matter what era, and worse, there are just outright typos.
Just because it's in print, doesn't necessarily make it right. Whenever something sounds less than appealing, I always take a step back and ask myself is what I am looking at was really the sonic intent.
...............Paul Aviles
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-08-26 18:37
Mark, it was many years ago when I studied with Simon and I probably did generalize what he said. But I do know for sure that he said the following because I was in high school when I first studied it with him and performed it with "The Bronx Symphony", my mother was so proud. He said if you have a good tongue you can do more articulations and if you don't you can do less. I believe he said something to me about it having to be musical as well. I have so many changes of articulations in my old part so I'm not sure which ones he suggested at the time. I've performed it a half dozen times since and I always changed something after hearing something I liked or doing what another teacher suggested. I've always believed it was a "living" piece in that way.
I totally agree with some of the above posts. If there really was a standard for articulations for the Mozart concerto than almost every fine performer would articulate it close to the same way as is done with Brahms, whom I believe wrote in the articulations he wanted. I'm not a historian so I'm not going to say that I know what people like Tony knows but I don't see different articulations in Brahms works like I do in every edition of the Mozart Concerto I've ever seen. I don't think anyone can actually say for sure "This is what Mozart wrote", or even wanted. One can only give their opinion. ESP
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-08-26 19:33
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, one of today's most respected conductors of Mozart, writes the following in his book "The Musical Dialogue":
"In the 18th century, articulation on an instrument was basically the responsibility of the interpreter. The composer had to mark only those passages in which he expressly desired an execution which deviated from tradition, from the established norm."
and, in reference to a tutti string passage from the Haffner symphony:
"If Mozart actually expected such an organized articulation from his interpreters (and I am firmly convinced that he did), then his work is distorted by an unarticulated manner of playing"
So it's not just OK to do whatever you think is musical. I think the key words here are THE ESTABLISHED NORM. Harnoncourt goes on to describe elements of this established norm, and contrasts them with how one of todays un-informed performers would play certain passages.
However, in regards to William's question, we also have to take a technical deficiency into consideration. If an unreasonably slow tempo has to be taken in order to play what Mozart might have expected, then perhaps it might be better to put in more slurs. I haven't spoken to Wolfgang recently, but I imagine that he'd prefer to have the right tempo with a few extra slurs here and there! ;-)
Two other points:
-We don't have a complete autograph of what Mozart actually wrote for the concerto (even though there are some relevant sources- eg. the Winterthur fragment), so we can't always be sure in which passages he may have wanted to deviate from tradition.
-Study also needs to be made regarding what an appropriate tempo would be for the movements of the Mozart concerto. (Harnoncourt's book also sheds light on Mozart's use of various tempo marks)
In my opinion, Ed's argument that there can be no standard because not every fine performer does it the same way does not ring true. Some very well known clarinetists may have very little idea as to what Mozart may have considered "the established norm", and may therefore be very far off the mark regarding choices of articulation and tempo in the clarinet concerto.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mrn
Date: 2009-08-26 22:54
Liquorice wrote:
> So it's not just OK to do whatever you think is musical. I
> think the key words here are THE ESTABLISHED NORM. Harnoncourt
> goes on to describe elements of this established norm, and
> contrasts them with how one of todays un-informed performers
> would play certain passages.
Interesting. So what does Harnoncourt say was the established norm at the time? (if you can briefly describe it--I don't want you to have to regurgitate the whole book, but I'm curious)
Post Edited (2009-08-26 23:50)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-27 15:05
mrn wrote:
>> Aha! I seemed to remember a good past thread related to this topic, and now I've found it:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=274905&t=274826
>>
Good; I wouldn't want to write all that again.
It's worth reiterating the central idea, though: Mozart's is 'thin' rather than 'thick' notation, and trying to avoid that fact in order to adopt a 'choose between editions' model is musically counterproductive.
It's why I always pooh-pooh that silly Koons article when people bring it up.
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: William
Date: 2009-08-27 18:33
Thank you, all, for responding....however, I was only using Mozart as an 'example' and not implying an indepth analysis of what is correct "Mozartian" articulation. My question was more general--is it acceptable/advisable to slur written arituclations no matter who the composer if tonguing would neccesitate slowing the tempo and destroying the basic musciallity of the work? Given this, to slur or not to slur might also read, "to play or not to play".
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-08-27 22:24
William wrote:
>> Thank you, all, for responding....however, I was only using Mozart as an 'example' and not implying an indepth analysis of what is correct "Mozartian" articulation. My question was more general--is it acceptable/advisable to slur written arituclations no matter who the composer if tonguing would neccesitate slowing the tempo and destroying the basic musciallity of the work?>>
So the lesson is, don't bother asking questions of that sort of generality, because there ARE no general answers. It all depends on the circumstances, the sort of music, and the nature and quality of what you provide in the way of an alternative to what is written.
You've probably gathered from the discussion that in the case of classical music, you're more free to play without staccato than you would be in, say, the Nielsen concerto.
>> Given this, to slur or not to slur might also read, "to play or not to play".>>
Well, it's YOUR problem, isn't it? Neither I nor anyone else here knows in detail what your alternative consist of.
But one thing is certain, I'd say: if you're playing for an audience, then it's the quality of your performance -- quite independently of whether or not you can tongue -- that determines whether you should bother AT ALL:-)
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
