 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: LinzDad
Date: 2012-09-29 16:46
My daughter is preparing for an audition and I'm having trouble recalling the guidance on playing double grace notes that my private teacher gave me over three, OK closing in on four, decades ago (I'm a non-professional). She is performing Etude #9 in Rose's 32 Etudes for Clarinet, and in one measure there is a series of four sets of eighth notes, each preceded by a double grace note. I seem to remember there were situations where the grace notes and first eighth note would be played much like a triplet, and others where the grace notes were played rapidly just prior to the downbeat on the eighth note. Is this strictly a matter of preference, as has been suggested on some message boards I've visited?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-09-29 18:05
LinzDad -
The grace notes come before the beat, perhaps a little faster than sixteenths but not as fast as thirty-seconds, and clean but not accented.
The melody is a descending scale, F-E-D-C (*not* G-F-E-D) with a series of appoggiaturas resolving down. You "lean" on each non-harmonic top note and "sigh" down to the harmonic lower one.
The grace notes are ornaments, not part of the melody. Their function is to call attention to the non-harmonic note on the beat. If you play the grace notes and the following eighth as a triplet, it interferes with the establishment of the appoggiatura as a non-harmonic tone.
Good luck to your daughter. Remember that the tempo is not allegro but moderato assai. Noble rather than lively.
By the way, which other message boards did you visit? I'd like to read what they say.
Ken Shaw
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-09-30 19:08
Hello LinzDad,
How you treat a grace not is not a "manner of preference" but a result of common practice pertaining to which era of music a composer was present. The short answer to the Rose question is that Rose is a contemporary composer, and in this era of music grace notes fall before the beat and are unaccented. They do not have any effect on the note they are embellishing.
In the Baroque era (around 1600 to 1760 A.D.) and early Classical era (starting 1730 to maybe 1800), there were no grace notes as they are today. Instead, grace notes denoted appoggiatura, which is (I believe) a stressed delayed harmonic resolution, commonly know as a sustain. (Maybe someone can second that for me, or tell us the accurate definition). To play these embellishments, the grace note is played on the beat, and in general resolves halfway through the embellished note. i.e. a single grace note before a half note would be two tied quater notes. I have found that these grace notes can be written as quarter notes or eighth notes, but they seem to mean the same thing. Common composers that should be played in this style are Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Handel, Quantz (although I have read his interpretation is slightly different), Mozart, C.P.E. Bach, Stamitz, and Haydn.
In the Romantic era (1815 to 1910 A.D.) and other contemporary eras, grace notes became embellishments occurring before the beat, which did not effect the note them embellished. I believe this is Beethoven and everything after.
Good luck,
Drew S.
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Author: LinzDad
Date: 2012-09-30 21:50
Ken and Drew,
Thank you both for your thorough and thoughtful responses. One of the piano-oriented boards I visited - which I can't seem to find again - also noted that attention to the composer/era was key to interpretation of the double grace note. I learned something new...
Thanks again!
Mike
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-09-30 23:09
As has already been mentioned, music composed as late as the Rose studies were published rarely uses the old appoggiatura notation (the composers just write the appoggiatura notes out separately at their intended rhythmic value). But in earlier music as late as Schubert and Weber, both types of embellishment are used and, unless you have a reason to doubt the modern editor's chosen notation, the slash is the best indication of how to handle them (at least in the case of single notes - slashes aren't often used for multiples).
Complicating the problem in the etude you ask about - even though Rose studies date from the Romantic era, many of the etudes he used (he only edited earlier etudes, mostly for violin) are from significantly earlier times. Knowing the source (I don't) of the particular study you mention might make a great deal of difference in interpreting these embellishments, which in the case of 32-#9 can logically and musically sound good played in either of the ways you've described. I'm not suggesting that it's simply preference, but that the choice may not be as cut-and-dried as it seems. Fortunately, they're only etudes, not meant for recital performance, and the choice most of the time (auditions excepted) doesn't really matter.
Karl
I agree with the others that for purposes of an audition your daughter is safer playing them before the beat. But if the original composer turned out to be contemporary with Weber or either of the Baermanns, I wouldn't be so confident.
David Hite identifies the sources of the Rose 40 Etudes. Does anyone know of similar identifications for the 32?
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-09-30 23:26
FWIW, according to Sean Osborn (in notes for his CD) most of the 32 Etudes are based on Ferling's 48 Etudes for Oboe, published in 1840. That's kind of borderline for the old appoggiatura notation. If anyone has access to a copy of the Ferling etudes, it might be instructive to see if he used the same notation or if Rose edited it. Also, you could listen to Sean Osborn's recording for at least one considered opinion.
Karl
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-09-30 23:47
I have the Ferling and the Rose 32. Both are decidedly contemporary in my eyes. You will really just know it when you see it with the "old" style grace notes. The pieces are much more simplistic in rhythm content. Mostly eighth notes, maybe some 16ths, probably no 32nd notes. Also, the harmonic structure is less complex, where the tonality may switch from Major to Relative Minor, and maybe even a Major 4th or 5th away, but complex chord patterns like Secondary Dominants and Tonal Centers moving in 3rds would be avoided.
The major difference between the two styles is which note to stress. In the Baroque grace notes, the grace note is stressed. This adds color and "tension" which is released when moving and resolving to the non-grace note. In contemporary grace notes, the grace notes are not stress, and the stress falls on the non-grace notes. A pretty accurate test to find which style to use is to put a heavy stress on the grace note, even more heavy then you may in performance. If the stress sounds god awful or is impossible to perform in general, then it's probably contemporary. If the stress sounds like musically it could work, then you can assume you can use Baroque grace notes. You will really know when you see and hear it.
If in doubt play the piece contemporary at first, and try to get your hand on a few recordings. If no recordings are available, private instruction and boards like this are always helpful.
Good Luck,
Drew S.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-10-01 02:30
Single grace notes, without a slash through the stem and slurred to a HARMONIC note, are common up through the classical period (e.g., Mozart). Their harmonic function is as an appoggiatura, resolving to a note in the chord on the full-size note. They're always played on the beat as two equal notes, each half the length of the main note.
The grace notes in the Rose etude are before a note that is itself an appoggiatura. I can't think of any occurrence of this figure where the grace note are played on the beat or together with the main note as a group of notes of equal length. (As close as I can think of is the rising figure in the slow movement of the Mozart Quintet, but there, the ornaments go to a harmonic tone. Some people play these as groups of five even notes, but I think they don't sound right in any way other than grupettos -- long, short, short, short, long.)
Ken Shaw
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