 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: graham
Date: 2010-08-04 10:15
I have long been aware of the Brahms Sonata adaptations for viola, but until a few days ago, unaware that Schubert's Shepherd on the Rock had also been adapted to replace the clarinet with the viola. I don't know by whom or when that adaptation was made. This was not explained by BBC Radio 3 who decided to broadcast it. I strove to keep an open mind when listining to it, but frankly it seems (contrary to my view re the Brahms Sonatas) to have been a sad mistake. The viola does not seem to echo the voice as the clarinet does. The sound is far too "knowing" and lacks any innocence of expression. It is easily overborne by the soprano voice. It is rewritten in parts to go into a lower register, but it does not sound as if Schubert would have intended that. It sounded sad and dull enough in the opening section, but the fast section at the end was sadder and duller. The running passages on the viola sounded, in this performance, almost smeared alongside the soprano's. The closing passages, adapted to go into the central viola register were reduced to a mindless wozzle effect that seemed to have been ripped out of a book of Bach unaccompanied string pieces.
Altogether unpleasant, and almost sacreligious.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-08-04 11:22
I've heard recordings with violin (Gidon Kremer, as I recall) and another with flute. Neither worked very well. Still, players of the inferior instruments naturally covet our treasures, and there's nothing much we can do about it.
Ken Shaw ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
