 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2012-11-28 13:57
Well after hearing the Schumann Fantasy Pieces beautifully played on the radio recently, I felt a terrible pang of guilt :-(. I had last played them when I was about 13 when I played the first movement for my Grade 5. I remember really disliking it and I think I sounded terrible even though I got a good mark.
I ordered the music again and have played the pieces in the last few days and they are truly beautiful. I wish I could apologise to Schumann for making them sound so bad when I was younger. Also Gerald Finzi, I am so sorry for treating your Bagatelles so appallingly :-( I heard them played with orchestra a few months ago and went back to re-visit them and they are fast becoming a real favourite. I think some of the pieces the ABRSM let people loose on in the early stages of their clarinet playing got a real rough deal.
Is it just me that thinks the first movement of the Schumann ( still Grade 5) is more difficult than the two last movements (which are now combined together for Grade 8)? I don't want to stop to take a breath in the first one as the legato is so beautiful when you get it right.
Post Edited (2012-11-28 14:03)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-11-28 14:09
If the Schumann and Brahms pieces were only played by those who could play them well, they would almost never be performed.
But take comfort in Chesterton's adage (often attributed to Gustav Holst and/or Ralph Vaughan Williams, who repeated it often):
"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly."
Counterintuitive...but very shrewd.
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-11-28 15:55
Great thought, Paula. It clarifies the source of some of my previously nebulous personal guilt feelings.
Johannes: My profoundest apologies (and thank you).
Mr. Poulanc? Well, there's no rush, is there?
Bob Phillips
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-11-28 17:09
Yep. Most people play Schumann and Brahms as well as they possibly can....which ends up quite badly. For some reason they still think it was worth doing. Or at least they do until they post here with copious existential hand-wringing about whether they should give up the clarinet. Which, in turn, provides another reason for why clarinetists should use synthetic reeds (people this emotionally unstable should be kept from reed knives).
Pass the cork grease, Jeeves. The show must go on.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-11-28 17:24
I'm waiting for Mozart to apologize to ME for all the boring music he's shoved down the throats of generations of audiences and the clarinet pieces of his that I'm expected to love for some unfathomable reason.
Sorry, Eric, but the show has folded because of the lousy economy.
Pass me my reed knife, would you Jeeves, old pal?
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