 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: grenadilla428
Date: 2010-09-26 00:28
Greetings, all!
I had a first reading of this piece today, and the three of us seem to want to interpret the turn (written out as sixty-fourths in our edition) differently. Do all editions write out the turn; are they supposed to be that tight? One of us likes it that way, and one of us would rather they were more like thirty-seconds.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
And have a great weekend, everyone!
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-09-26 01:20
All editions I've seen show the turns as 64ths, but on older recordings they're often played as 32nds. I prefer them as 64ths, played as pickups to the following notes, and that's the way they're played on most contemporary recordings.
Ken Shaw
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2010-09-26 04:13
I personally prefer them to be 64ths. But that's just my opinion.
Realistically however, you have no say. However the piano and viola (violin? No viola I think...) play it in the beginning of the piece is how YOU'LL have to play it. Otherwise it'll sound jacked up. But it WOULD be nice to come to an agreement. Even if it's just for the sake of agreeing. Lord knows I've played a few pieces too fast or too slow IMO, but I'd rather us all play the same than have it come out as a musical disagreement to the audience.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
Post Edited (2010-09-26 04:15)
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Author: salzo
Date: 2010-09-26 05:43
It is not a "turn (gruppetto)", it is written out as 64th notes, and that is how it should be played.
Mozart knew what a gruppetto was, and would have used it if that was what he intended.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2010-09-26 11:16
The crucial thing to see is that the 64th notes move the second gesture in the bar slightly forward in time, suppressing (in the case of the clarinet entry) any accent on the high A. This unequal division of the bar 'tilts' it towards being perceived in one, rather than in two -- even though the accompaniment simultaneously tilts it towards being perceived in two. Such delicately balanced division of labour between parts is very common in Mozart.
It helps to play the fast notes with a quite 'tight' sound, so that the detail is heard clearly. And they SHOULD be 64ths -- Mozart took the trouble to write them out in full throughout this movement.
Also, avoid thinking of them as an upbeat to the A. Rather, they 'replace' the A, the line being carried by the long notes. Many players begin too imprecisely, as though the long notes are incidental to the melodic interest, which they wrongly think happens only on the eighth notes. In fact, how you varyingly shape the long notes (and how the fortepiano CAN'T) is a significant expressive device.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-09-26 14:23
Interesting, Tony. Do you delay the 64ths to play the following notes slightly after the beat, or play each group of 64ths before the beat and de-emphasize the following note?
The clarinet entrance repeats the initial viola phrase and also has it in (slightly varied) augmentation, at one note per bar rather than one note per beat with each note ornamented. I've always though I should mirror the viola's opening phrase, both in my first measure and over 6 measures.
Perhaps you can say a little more about how you "replace" the melodic notes with the ornaments and still keep the shape of the phrase while not bringing out the long notes.
I'm serious about this. I need your insight and guidance.
Ken Shaw
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Author: salzo
Date: 2010-09-26 16:43
Tony wrote
"Also, avoid thinking of them as an upbeat to the A. Rather, they 'replace' the A, the line being carried by the long notes. Many players begin too imprecisely, as though the long notes are incidental to the melodic interest, which they wrongly think happens only on the eighth notes. In fact, how you varyingly shape the long notes (and how the fortepiano CAN'T) is a significant expressive device."
Bingo.
TO me, it seems that the emphasis should be placed on the quarter note on the first beat of the measure, rather than the first eight note of the second beat of the measure. I hear it as the long note (1st beat) must be moving to the next long note (1st beat of the next measure). The 64ths, and eight notes of the figure are just played in passing to the next long tone.
My personal opinion, is that this piece is often done too slow, and that the first movement should be done in 2, or even one, rather than in six. In six it sounds meandering, without direction, in two it has flow, and direction.
Post Edited (2010-09-26 19:00)
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Author: grenadilla428
Date: 2010-09-26 17:36
Thanks, Tony. I was unsure if Mozart had actually written it out or if that was done by an editor.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2010-09-26 21:50
Salzo wrote:
>>...the first movement should be done in 2, or even one, rather than in six.>>
I think another important thing to realise is that what it's 'in' can change from bar to bar -- and, moreover, that different parts can be 'in' different things in the SAME bar. That's what I meant when I talked about one part 'tilting' a bar towards being in one, and another part 'tilting' the same bar towards being in two.
It might be worth going into that a little: looking at the clarinet part, the first bar of the last movement of K622 might be thought to be in two. But the quaver disposition of the accompaniment in that bar -- quaver, quaver rest, 4 quavers -- divides the bar UNEQUALLY to the listener.
Unequal division of a bar tends to suppress the middle of the bar -- unless you override that perception with a sufficiently strong accent. So the bar is 'tilted' by the accompaniment towards being heard in one.
The upshot is that it's natural to have the sequence of 8 bars at the beginning of that movement go:
In one; in one; two 3/8 bars; in one;
In one, in one; two 3/8 bars; in one (or perhaps in two).
Why do I say 'two 3/8 bars' and not 'in two' in that little analysis?
Well, in classical music complete written bars are Normally in one, two, or some such integer, with the first beat privileged, in some sense. (So in a 2/4 bar the first beat is Normally slightly more than the second, and the same for a 6/8 bar.) But the two halves of the third bar here are so similar in structure that it's worthwhile making them not Normal but 'special' -- and 'special' in classical music, paradoxically to our modern sensibilities perhaps, means UNmodulated.
That's why it counts as 'special' to pick out the two falling F-D thirds in the third bar of the FIRST movement so that they sound identical, because such lack of modulation within a bar isn't Normal behaviour in the style. And I write 'Normal' rather than 'normal', because 'Normal' is a technical term that means: what you normally did in the classical style, and what lay behind everything at the time; like bar hierarchy, which was represented to a varying degree; and phrasing away from the beginnings of slurs, which occurred to a greater or lesser extent.
Think of the four timpani strokes that open the Beethoven violin concerto. A timpani player of the time, and the entire violin section a bit later, would have modulated those ever so subtly so that they sounded like a Normal 4/4 bar -- it's possible to do that so that there's just the faintest aural perfume of the hierarchy -- with the result that the four equal hammerblows of the full orchestra tutti that follows had a much heightened effect. And they didn't have to TRY consciously to do this modulation, because it was a part of the style; any more than jazz players TRY to swing nowadays. It was/is in their blood -- or 'in their spines', as Taruskin puts it.
I said 'integer' above; but of course bars were sometimes in 'a half': for example, each of the first two bars of the Mozart clarinet quintet is 'in a half', because the first two bars together constitute one large bar, as shown by the phrasing. That sort of thing occurs even in the absence of such phrasing, and is called 'hypermetre' (or hypermeter for some of you). It's something that sensitive players think about and discuss a lot.
That brings us back to the Kegelstatt, because at the outset the first two bars ARE divided unequally. That might not guarantee that we'll hear them as a unit, because there is no really clear pulse until the third bar -- which I myself fancy as a perky 3/8 special pair (you might prefer the hierarchy, of course) -- but you can play them as a unit, and likewise the fifth and sixth bars. (If you do 'my' version, you get a heightened version of the sudden switch from 'in a half' to 'in two' -- skipping over 'in one' -- because of the lack of hierarchy between the two 3/8 bars.)
But when we get to the clarinet entry, the unequal division of the bar in the clarinet line goes with the 'in two-ness' of the fortepiano to create something that's half in one and half in two:-) -- more in one to start with, of course, because the harmony is the same.
Everything lines up, by the way. The 64ths are just before the second beat, but the A coincides with the left hand of the fortepiano -- even though nothing is 'made of' that coincidence. There are two large, slightly unequal gestures in the bar, and the second one begins with a flurry. How much you sustain the first note, or equivalently, how much you come away, is a constant, generative question throughout the movement. It's particularly crucial at the point when the three players enter canonically at half-bar intervals.
Notice that the C major (for us) theme in bar 25, similar in several ways to the opening, is clearly in two, both harmonically and because there is no asymmetric flurry. And here, I suggest a good way of thinking of how the music may go is to play the two three-bar phrases 25-27, 28-30:
In two, modulated; two 3/8 bars (identical structures); in two, modulated
...where 'modulated' means, second half lighter than first.
One final thing worth pointing out: in bar 17 and 19 everybody is in rhythmic unison, with the fortepiano interpolation of the main motif in bars 18 and 20. But in bars 21ff the repeated quaver idea of bar 17 has the tail of the main motif tacked on to it, and the result is developed in the fortepiano, whilst clarinet and viola phrase over the barline. But because the slur 'kills off' the barline for them, there is no need for the fortepiano to overinsist on being heard. The fortepiano line stands out against the phrasing away of the other two that is a Normal element of the style, and gives the player space to use nuance.
So, to go, 'da-DA' is wrong here not because it goes against a rule. It's because it's one of many examples of Mozart using a Normative feature to good purpose. When we phrase away, we show our understanding of his use of a TOOL. We are not simply obeying a rule.
Tony
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2010-09-28 01:19
Not to do with the topic under discussion and perhaps trite after Tony's interesting post, but.........I remember a theory that went around North American chamber circles about a decade ago. It was suggested that the first movement of the Kegelstatt trio was actually missing from the manuscript. According to this theory the trio was supposed to be a four-movement work and that what we know as the first movement was actually the second movement. This was used as an argument for a slow tempo for the first movement since, according to this theory, it was actually the slow movement of the piece.
I looked for evidence supporting this theory. I found only evidence that supported the suggestion that it is indeed a three-movement work, not the least-convincing of which is that the first page of the manuscript (Andante) has a "page 1" formality about it (indicating the instruments, etc.).
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