 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-10 15:45
I recently listened to a recording of the Adagio from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto by Eric Hoeprich with Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century.
One thing that stuck out at me was that it sounded like he played a lot of the grace notes before the beat. I thought this was really strange, because as far back as I can remember, I've always been told to play 18th century grace notes *on* the beat, and in every recording of Mozart I've heard (that I can remember, anyway) the grace notes are played on the beat.
I'm confident Hoeprich and Brüggen know what they're doing better than I do when it comes to playing this music, though, so I must be missing something--things are not at simple as I was led to believe in youth symphony at age 12 or so. (Ah, if only everything were as simple as it was at age 12... )
So, anyway, I was hoping maybe somebody could give me a more "grown-up" overview of how 18th century grace notes work with all the gory details and moral dilemmas that got left out when I learned this stuff the first time around, and possibly explain to me how Hoeprich got from what's printed on the page to what he played in this recording.
Thanks!
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-11-10 16:48
That's a very good question and I often wonder if there is an actual answer that is written in stone. I've heard difference opinions on this too. Sometimes the grace note should a longer note on the beat but other times it should be before the beat and shorter but then I hear some "famous" players do the opposite in some cases. No, I can't remember who or when so please don't ask me that. We'll have to see if there's someone that's more of a historian then me for sure because I can only go by what my former teachers told me as well as what I've heard others do, then I form my own opinion. So the question really is, is there actual proof that there is only one correct way to play grace notes in Mozart's time that is indisputable or is it just a matter of opinion? ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-11-10 18:25
A "grown up" overview would be far beyond the scope of a single post on a bulletin board! I think this is a complex issue, because small notes (which could indicate grace notes or appoggiaturas) meant various things in different contexts, and these could differ from composer to composer. There is also the question of haste or laziness on the part of a composer, which could really confuse things too. (An example would be in the Gran Partita where Mozart uses dots in one part, but strokes simultaneously in another part. Did he really want these parts performed differently? Were the dot and stroke analogous for Mozart? Or did he just write this in haste without really thinking about the fact that performers would be puzzling over his score hundreds of years later?!)
So, what to do in the Gran Partita? Look at bar 16 in the first movement (the 2nd bar of the first molto allegro theme). I grew up hearing recordings and performances of this grace note playing accented and on the beat. Rather like a 16th followed by a dotted 8th, the kind that you would find in Hungarian folk music. I'm sure it would be possible to find a written source at the end of the 18th century which states that grace notes should be played on the beat. But from my reading of books on performance practice, it seems that the majority of sources would state that this grace note should be performed before the beat, and unaccented. An example would be in the Klavierschule by Türk (who was familiar with Mozart's music) where he states the rule that "Vorschläge" that come before staccato notes should be performed short. I think that if we look at bar 92 in the same movement, we see that Mozart was also capable of writing out the Hungarian rhythm when he wanted it, so presumably didn't expect it when he wrote grace notes.
But then there are other notes which should probably be considered as appoggiaturas (eg. bar 2 of the introduction) which should then be played long and on the beat. And there are lots of other cases which come into question. An in-depth study is certainly necessary, although may not always lead to conclusive answers. Still, I think think this is a much better approach than just relying on what our teachers have told us, or what we have heard others do.
It's important to think about all this before the rehearsals start. I've experienced many wasted hours of rehearsal time with musicians arguing over the correct execution of appoggiaturas, when actually we would have spent our time much more productively working on our intonation!
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-11-10 18:39
Mike wrote:
>> I'm confident Hoeprich and Brüggen know what they're doing better than I do when it comes to playing this music, though, so I must be missing something.>>
I've come to think that all these 'rules' are best thought of as 'tools' for musical expression. So, gracenotes are in general on the beat just because that gives you an appoggiatura as an expressive tool.
On the other hand, in K361, where I'd always fancied the first movement allegro gracenote on the beat: looking at Mozart's MS persuaded me that the layout in his handwritten score implied that it was on the contrary, OFF the beat. And in the development section, that makes a contrast between the staccato falling major second with gracenote, and the legato falling major second, without; that's in the 'revised' -- ie. back to the MS -- version.
Yet, again, the contrast might be even more evident if the gracenote were to be ON. You lose the 'equivalent' falling second, but gain in contrast.
The four or five times I played the Mozart concerto with Bruggen, I played the gracenotes on the beat, and he made no comment. So clearly it's not a major issue with him.
He also does K361 off the beat.
I'll listen to Hoeprich's recording when I'm at home -- but my view is that there is no 'right' way of doing it -- it depends on the musical context, which as a player you CREATE in large part, of course.
Tony
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-10 18:57
Ed Palanker wrote:
> So the question
> really is, is there actual proof that there is only one correct
> way to play grace notes in Mozart's time that is indisputable
> or is it just a matter of opinion?
That's part of it--I guess the other part I wanted to know was, assuming we have a choice between different styles of grace notes in Mozart, is there any historical guidance as to how to make the choice?
One the things that prompted me to ask was that I noticed that the Hoeprich recording seems stylistically quite different from other recordings. His tempo is faster, for one thing, but the mental image I get from the music is different, too. For instance, with Robert Marcellus's recording or Tony Pay's recording, the imagery I have of the Adagio movement is that of peacefully floating down a river. Hoeprich's Adagio sounds more like a processional or pavane (except it's in 3 instead of 2, of course). So it made me wonder if perhaps different styles of music from the same era might call for different kinds of grace notes--one kind for marches, one kind for minuets, etc. Something along those lines, although not necessarily that simple.
While we're on this topic, another thing that I've never really understood about this style is why composers bothered to write on-the-beat appoggiaturas with tiny little notes to begin with. The received wisdom of my youth orchestra days was that if you're playing a piece in the classical style and you see a little grace note leading into a eighth note and two sixteenths, you're supposed to play the whole thing as four sixteenths. Now I understand that with appoggiaturas, you play the appoggiatura itself with a little more emphasis, because it's the out-of-place note in the harmony that has to be resolved. But I still don't really understand the point of notating it with a grace note, because you can tell simply from the fact that an out of harmony note appears on a strong beat that it's an appoggiatura. Why did classical composers feel the need to provide this extra notation to tell us? And should there be a difference in the way a passage is played if notated one way as opposed to the other?
Post Edited (2009-11-10 19:50)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2009-11-11 11:08
Thanks Tony. It's always good to have your perspective, as an excellent player of the classical clarinet who has worked with the best colleagues.
Ken Shaw
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-11 17:35
Tony wrote:
<<I've come to think that all these 'rules' are best thought of as 'tools' for musical expression. So, gracenotes are in general on the beat just because that gives you an appoggiatura as an expressive tool.>>
Thanks. That's a better way of looking at it. So in the K.622 Adagio perhaps someone might decide not to play the grace notes on the beat because they don't feel they need the additional tension to resolve in the clarinet part--that it would be enough simply to yield to the orchestra, which has its own harmonic tension to resolve (V of V chord in bar 7, for example). If you play the grace note in bar 7 before the beat, for instance, then it becomes part of the orchestra's V6/4 chord in beat 2, so you're moving with the orchestra as the orchestra resolves the harmony, as opposed to moving away from the orchestra and resolving tension set up between you and the orchestra.
I still don't understand the point of using grace notes to notate appoggiaturas in places like two bars before the repeat sign in K.361 (1st movement again), though. Would it have made any difference if Mozart had just written four sixteenth notes instead?
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2009-11-11 21:06
mrn wrote: "I still don't understand the point of using grace notes to notate appoggiaturas in places like two bars before the repeat sign in K.361 (1st movement again), though. Would it have made any difference if Mozart had just written four sixteenth notes instead?"
YES!
Mozart was using the system of notation for appoggiaturas which was, in his day, already considered somewhat old-fashioned (although some composers, including Schubert, continued to use it after Mozart's time). But his insistence on using this notation shows us that he saw these notes as appoggiaturas and NOT just as normal 16ths. This means that they would be played longer and with more weight and tension than the following 16ths. ("Appoggiatura" comes from the Italian verb "appoggiare" -to lean) The fact that these appoggiaturas occur on the 2nd and 4th beats of the bar means that these beats get an accentuation which deviates from the normal pattern of accentuation on 1 and 3. This gives the passage a rhythmic quirkiness which would be totally lost if the notes were all played as equal 16ths.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-12 02:46
Liquorice wrote:
> The fact that these appoggiaturas occur on the 2nd
> and 4th beats of the bar means that these beats get an
> accentuation which deviates from the normal pattern of
> accentuation on 1 and 3. This gives the passage a rhythmic
> quirkiness which would be totally lost if the notes were all
> played as equal 16ths.
Ahh....Now I understand. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
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