 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: musica
Date: 2011-04-30 18:25
Any thoughts on the opening being interpreted in 3/4 time? I was asked to change to match what was to follow later in the solo.... Kind of puts some
restrictions on it written in this way. (i.e.opening 16th rest followed by 16
notes rather than 8ths.)
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Author: 2E
Date: 2011-05-01 04:05
i reckon play it as written, and follow what the tenor does.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-05-01 04:35
musica wrote:
>> Any thoughts on the opening being interpreted in 3/4 time? I was asked to change to match what was to follow later in the solo.... Kind of puts some restrictions on it written in this way. (i.e.opening 16th rest followed by 16 notes rather than 8ths.)>>
You might want to ask yourself: why did Puccini write it the way he did?
If you can't come up with any good ideas for that to start with, you might then ask yourself: what do I need to know further, in order to be able to answer the question?
Where would you look?
Tony
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Author: 2E
Date: 2011-05-01 06:12
when i was studying this solo, my teacher asked me what was happening in the opera, what the tenor was singing about. He's about to be executed, and is singing about how he's going to miss life and the one he loves etc.
Start with that
2E.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2011-05-01 09:56
2E- if you look a bit more closely into the libretto, you'll see that the first 4 bars of the clarinet solo serve as an introduction to the tenor aria- a kind of mood setter.
Cavaradossi is about to be executed, and has bribed the prison guard (with a ring that Tosca gave him) to give him a pen and paper so that he can write a final letter to Tosca before he dies. While writing this letter (cello solo) he suddenly remembers the first time he saw Tosca and fell in love. "The stars were shining, the earth smelled sweet, the garden gate creaked.. she came in, fragrant as a flower," etc. etc.
So the mood that the clarinet solo is setting is one of a dream-like memory. If you check Puccini's markings, he writes a piano dynamic, with dolcissimo and vagamente as character directions. Even the crescendo to high C (in octaves with the 2nd clarinet) also has the indication vagamente. Many clarinet players think that they have to play the melody the way that the tenor sings it, and belt out a big emtional climax on the high C, but I see that as ignorance of the libretto and misunderstanding of Puccini's writing. It's only later, after the clarinet solo, when Cavaradossi sings about his last hour having flown past, and him dying hopelessly in love.
Back to musica's original question- I would certainly play it in 6/4 as Puccini wrote it. He writes this melody many times throughout the opera, and often in different rhythmsand tempos. Each time it comes it has a different significance in the text, and I'm sure Puccini did this on purpose.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-05-01 13:03
Ben Armato was in the Met Opera Orchestra for many years. http://www.reedwizard.com/AboutArmato.html
Several years ago, I sat at his table at the ClarinetFest in Columbus and played the Tosca solo from his comprehensive opera solo book. He stopped me again and again to say "Remember, this is OPERA. Everything is larger than life." Each phrase I played, he would exclaim "MORE" and conduct me to play with almost unimaginable freedom.
There are many excellent YouTube performances to choose from.
Alagna's clarinetist is very free and matches the soft vocal entrance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6urNGBR95w
Domingo's clarinetist plays with more personality, not softly, but very well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdiJ74AL5Y
Bergonzi's clarinetist plays very big, channeling the huge climax. Close your eyes to avoid the awful animation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynJsRBRRW3A By the way, Ben wanted it even bigger.
Licitra sings with the La Scala Orchestra. His clarinetist (probably the wonderful Fabrizio Meloni) listens hard and matches Licitra's nuances.
Of course the big egos of the tenor world don't like to be outshone. Corelli's clarinetist might as well be behind a curtain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzb9uwfgD1w
You play in the right time signature, but as Liquorice says, you must know the words and the plot; the heart-wrenching EMOTION is what's important.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-05-01 18:46
OK, I'll answer my own question.
The opening bar of the extract is in 6/4 because it is part of the transition from the 'cello quartet that accompanies Cavaradossi's writing of his letter to Tosca -- that bit is in 6/4 -- to the 3/4 of the music where he has broken off writing in order to sing the aria that liquorice has outlined.
When you look at the SCORE -- that's what I was trying to get at -- you see that it's a two-bar transition, of which the first bar is a harp arpeggio that starts with exactly the same rhythm and notes (F# C#) as the clarinet and continues in eighth notes through the bar, finishing F# C# and then F# over the barline. The clarinet 'rhymes' the beginning and end of this over the dying first 'cello F# with its first stentato notes, before making the transition to the dotted rhythm of the final beat before the 3/4.
The transition is best achieved if the change is organic. So, playing the OPERA, I would try to keep all the eighths of the clarinet part 'recognisably' eighth notes. That doesn't mean, of course, that they should be all the same length, because of the 'vagamente' instruction. We hear them as a progressively emotionally charged version of the harp arpeggio representing the interruption of Cavaradossi's writing to his love by his singing of his tender, and finally -- because of his impending death -- bitter-sweet, memories of her.
I once recorded this in isolation, with someone called Pavarotti, and was persuaded, I think by the conductor, to play the next four eighths (after the first three 'spoken' eighths) faster, approximating sixteenths, so that the listener's perception of the second half of the 6/4 bar had the written E arriving on the fifth beat, with a long wait through the sixth beat before going into the 3/4. This may be a performance tradition: the recording of de Stefano under Victor de Sabata does precisely this. But I think it does spoil something if you do it in the opera.
The job of a clarinet player, or indeed any musician, is continually to do their best to respond to context. So, if you have to START the aria cold, without the harp arpeggio, and without the heightened emotional atmosphere of the 'cello quartet preceding that, you may well be justified in playing it a little differently, particularly if the director and/or the tenor is inclined to that reading.
I'd even say that in the opera, the device of the letter/'cello quartet is there precisely in order to set up the possibility that the aria itself can begin quietly, with our emotional contribution balanced between representing Tosca's loveliness to Cavaradossi and his torment at his situation, finally culminating in his desperate outburst. The B minor aria is in fact sandwiched between two versions of music associated with Tosca, the first on the cellos in D major when he's writing to her, and the second on the winds, 6/8, in B major, when she actually appears.
You can see all this on pp 24-30 of the IMSLP score of Act III:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Tosca_(Puccini,_Giacomo)
Don't forget to look at the SHAPE of the 2-bar transition.
Anyhow, what various YouTube versions have done is largely irrelevant. Not all of them are players you would want to copy, and anyway they had their own contexts, directors -- perhaps even egocentric tenors -- to deal with. The result was just what it was.
You should start again, looking first at the score, and try to contribute in a way that does your best for Puccini.
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-05-02 00:12
Of course (and FWIW) the clarinet solo is not the first statement of the tune - it appears earlier - at #7 before the cello quartet - as Cavaradossi is being brought to the holding cell before his impending execution. The beginning of the theme, played by unison and octave strings, gets the same rhythmic treatment (in terms of note durations) as the later clarinet entrance, but here is set in a 4/4 meter for its first three bars (the pick-up is in the bar before). So I would think that, to some extent, what the strings have done earlier might in some way be reflected in the clarinet solo that introduces the aria itself.
Interestingly (or perhaps not), I just played the last of a pair of performances of Tosca this afternoon, over all a good local production, in which most (if not all) of the appearances of this melody were rhythmically altered so that, regardless of the notation, the first three notes were slow, and the following ones were twice as fast (not counting the held note - sometimes the highest note, sometimes the dotted note, at least once both notes). It seemed to me a little bizarre, having only once before played this opera, too long ago to remember how it was done then, to so completely ignore the notated rhyhmic relationships. It wasn't rubato or espressivo, it was effectively re-written, seemingly by general consensus among the conductor, the tenor and orchestra (who are collectively all more experienced in grand opera than I am) - even the final appearance in the brass eight bars from the end. I played second clarinet both times I've done this opera, so wasn't involved in any decisions, although everyone - 2nd clarinet included - needs to be aware of what's going on so subsequent entrances can be accurate. I have a feeling that in many productions of this, the figure is "interpreted" more as a rendition of whatever the conductor or the tenor has heard on his favorite recording. The way we did it this week was the opposite of what Pavarotti wanted you to do, Tony (if I understand your description correctly), so if actual performance tradition is involved, there must be more than one competing with each other.
Not sure what any of this is worth. I found my experience with this over the past few days interesting against the discussion here of the same music.
Karl
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-05-02 00:54
Karl wrote:
>> The way we did it this week was the opposite of what Pavarotti wanted you to do, Tony (if I understand your description correctly), so if actual performance tradition is involved, there must be more than one competing with each other.>>
No, it was the same, judging by your description.
Also, it wasn't Pavarotti wanting me to do anything; if anyone, it would have been the conductor. I remember horn players chipping in with suggestions, too.
I find I have to argue against all this copying of each other, all the time. You can't get people to look at the score, because they want to ape their favourite player.
OR, to take notice of some coarse description of what someone says that someone they think KNEW something told them personally to do in some lesson they had.
Huh.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-05-02 16:15
To paraphrase the great Yogi Berra: Sometimes you can hear a lot just by listening.
Certainly I study the score and try to follow the composer's instructions, but I've learned most of what I know about musicality by listening to the great musicians -- John McCormack, Dinu Lipatti, Louis Armstrong and many others, definitely including Tony Pay.
I don't set out to imitate them, but I do try to integrate their understanding and emotion into my own playing. I wouldn't be human, and (for what it's worth) I'd certainly be a less good musician, if I didn't do that.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-05-02 21:46
It is true that how to play music is an open secret. The great players play for you: all you have to do is to do something like 'what they do'.
The difficulty of doing that is often thought to be a technical one. But more often, students find it difficult, first, to identify the great player; and second, to capture for themselves in a useful way 'what they do'.
The fact is that, until you have a sufficiently rich set of musical models, you can't identify a great player AS great. Neither can you hear 'what they are doing'. And obviously, until you can hear 'what they are doing', you can't do it; and you can't NOT do it, either.
On the other hand, when you DO have a sufficiently rich set of models, you can learn both from what you like, and from what you don't like.
The main thing I try to do, both here and in my own teaching, is to advance detailed understanding of those models. That of course involves listening to great players, and to ourselves; but in a particular way. It's no good waffling on in the abstract about 'unimaginable freedom' and 'heart-wrenching emotion'.
As it's said, travel broadens the mind; but you need to have the mind to begin with.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-05-02 22:33
And the way to accumulate a "sufficiently rich set of musical models" is, I suggest, to study the score and listen to a large number of professional performances. When I listened to the YouTube recordings, I was doing nothing else. While I would not attempt to play the solo exactly as Fabrizio Meloni does, as the principal at La Scala he is required listening.
I also suggest that you can get at least a clue to the emotional content, particularly of an operatic solo, by studying the score and listening to professional performances. "Heart-wrenching emotion" is the end of the study, not the beginning. Certainly looking for the emotional content of a solo is at least as useful as trying to "contribute in a way that does your best for Puccini."
Otherwise, playing "in a way that does your best for Puccini" is nothing but waffle, pancake and crepe.
Ken Shaw
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