 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2014-02-24 03:05
I'm using the Carl Fischer edition of the 40 Rose Studies, the first part (red cover), copyright 1910.
Can anyone tell me if the tempo markings are original? How about the phrasing? Is it ok to pause for breaths between contrasting sections or figures (perhaps combined with a ritardando), even though there is no rest?
More specifically, I'm playing number 12. It's marked with the dotted quarter at 72, which, to me at least, sounds more like presto than allegretto. You can go fairly quick and still have it sound elegant, but too fast and its just a bunch of notes (and I can't play it that fast anyhow!). Also, am I nuts, or is the piece supposed to be very rubato, like an improvisation?
Another example: Number 10 is marked at 128 bpm. How are you supposed to play 32nds cleanly and accurately at that speed, such as the alternating groups of 4 beginning on line 7?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-02-24 05:47
The International edition edited by Stanley Drucker does NOT assume specific metronomic markings. I'd say the tempos you are quoting are on the particularly brisk side (though do-able). I'm with you on with making music out of.....well, music !!! No. 12 sounds better with lots of ebb and flow. Now the thirty seconds in no. 10 (to me) sound a little more like ornaments, but 128 is pushing things a bit.
And remember playing WITHIN your ability to play everything cleanly takes precedent over everything.
And it's never too late to practice something S-L-O-W-L-Y.
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-02-24 05:58
First of all, these were published as study pieces and were never intended to be performed in public recital. So textual purity isn't really an issue.
Second, these etudes are not Rose's original compositions. He used existing violin etudes, adapting them as he thought useful for developing technical and musical skill on the clarinet. Many had very specific technical purposes as violin studies. Rose, I have always supposed, chose ones he believed presented important problems for the clarinetist to solve.
For example, Rose 40 #12 is an adaptation of the 9th etude in Charles Dancla's 20 Etudes brillantes et carateristiques, Op. 73 (David Hite tracked down all 40 of the etudes in Rose's 40 studies and lists the sources in his own edition published by Southern Music Company). In the copy of the Dancla etudes (published in 1895, which is not the original edition), #9 is marked Allegro agitato and has no metronome marking. It's in F minor and, in a note under the title, the student is instructed to play the entire etude in 2nd position. In Rose's version, the key is changed to E minor, which probably doesn't make much difference, and 16th notes are left out at several phrase endings to allow for breaths, which are of course not an issue for a violinist. An exercise in 2nd position for the violinist turns into a legato scale and arpeggio exercise for clarinet with the grace note execution as an added feature.
Hite gives the tempo as Moderato (no mm). Rose's tempo marking is Allegretto quarter=72. The musical implications, never mind the actual tempi, of the three versions are different. Which is right? Clearly, Rose's inserted rests (which, by the way, are close enough to each other in #12 to make stopping at other places for breaths mostly unnecessary) are not "original." Dancla's phrase markings, which are probably meant as actual bowing marks, generally are one bow (or phrase) to a bar. Rose breaks some bars into two phrases and in one place - right before the trill - combines two measures under a single slur/phrase. Rose's "phrasing" is different from the original in ways that are probably not important.
So, the answer to any question involving these etudes that begins with "is it OK to..." is that there's nothing sacred enough about these etudes to cause concern about accuracy or musical integrity. How you approach them depends almost entirely on what you expect to accomplish by practicing them at all. If you want to work on breath control and phrase length, don't add breaths - the etude is playable as written (in Rose's version) without stopping in other places than the ones he provided. If you add rests (which in some of the other etudes is a necessity or you'd be playing entire pages in two breaths) you'll lose that part of the exercise, but maybe gain something else more valuable to you individually.
As to whether this etude is "supposed to be" very rubato and improvisational sounding, again there's no reason in the notation to play it that way but no reason not to if that approach isn't simply a way to get around some of the technical problems that you'd be better tackling directly. The point is, no one will ever hear you, and your overall approach to these etudes is one that will remain private. Unless you're studying them with a teacher who has his/her own agenda concerning what can or should be accomplished.
In #10, which I confess I never played for any of my teachers when I studied these (it's crossed out by the first teacher I studied them with) and I have never assigned to a student, is from a collection of violin etudes by Jaques Mazas. In Mazas's version, it is primarily an exercise in bow control - specifically "Lifting the Bow" as it is titled. The purpose explains the rests and the short phrases, but the etude contributes nothing to a clarinetist that can't be accomplished through other, less disjointed material.
A classic example of how these etudes are sometimes used to serve technical purposes that are not related to the etude's "original" purpose is the first of these 40 studies. Dancla marks it Moderato cantabile, but more important, he writes at the top that this entire etude should be played in 5th position. Thus, like the other, it's meant as an exercise in fingering and intonation in a specific position, a technical concept that's meaningless to a clarinetist. Rose marked it Allegretto cantabile and Hite writes Andante cantibile. Singing with some degree of motion. When I studied this etude, first with a couple of different students of Anthony Gigliotti and then eventually with Gigliotti himself, I was instructed to play it very slowly - adagio in 8 beats to the measure. I always understood that this was also how Daniel Bonade taught this etude - he may mention it in his Compendium. The goal, in addition to good overall tone and intonation, now emphasized an absolutely seamless legato over all those leaps. I never got through the entire etude with any of my teachers - it just took too long and the point was made well enough in the first few staves.
Karl
Post Edited (2014-02-24 07:53)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2014-02-26 03:07
Thank you guys. Obviously I didn't know about the Drucker edition, or the violin bit. However, I had been listening to Fritz Kreisler's playing, and it inspired me to change my approach to playing the Rose Studies. I guess I wasn't that far off the mark!
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2014-02-25 22:23
Actually, many of the Rose etudes are based on Ferling Oboe etudes.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-02-25 23:05
That's true for the Rose 32 Etudes, but Hite linked each of the clarinet studies in the 40 Etudes to their specific violin ancestors.
Looking at the two sets of Ferling etudes on IMSLP, I recognize many of them and I think will spend some practice time tonight trying to connect them to their clarinet versions. I'm not sure Rose was the only one to adopt them for clarinet use. For example, one I want to try to track down tonight is #14 in the Op.12 set - I recognize it easily and know it quite well, but can't place what collection it's in. It isn't in Rose 40, 32 or 20 (which are Rode studies). I almost think it might have been Baermann, maybe Book IV, but I'll have to look for it. Many of the Op. 31 Ferling studies appear in the Rose 32.
And then the next question is, where did Ferling's etudes come from? Were they his compositions or also adaptations of existing material (likely written for strings)?
In any case, none of these are Cyrille Rose's compositions and any editorial markings in Rose's versions or subsequent editions by others represent editorial opinion, pure and simple, and not scholarly attempts at textual purity or historical accuracy.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-02-26 08:11
As a matter of fact, now that I've gone through them, all 32 of the Rose 32 Etudes have counterparts in Ferling's Op. 31. But Ferling's versions sound like severely, and sometimes quite awkwardly, truncated versions of already extant sources. Rose's versions include more music and sound as though they are relatively complete formally,
> And then the next question is, where did Ferling's etudes come
> from? Were they his compositions or also adaptations of
> existing material (likely written for strings)?
>
suggesting that they may have both used the same sources that preceded both Ferling and Rose. But I'm at a dead end there - I can't find much on the Ferling etudes at all, and the IMSLP materials don't include any editorial prefaces that may have been included in the original editions. That's a project I'm just curious enough to pursue further. I may (shudder) have to go out and buy a current edition (hopefully one that's annotated to some degree).
Failing any great discoveries in the prefaces, I guess I'd have to start trolling through all the etude collections Rose used for the 40 and see if any sources of the 32 show up. Maybe one of my oboist friends knows something about it.
Karl
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Author: ruben
Date: 2014-02-27 00:57
The great French clarinetist, Philippe Cuper, brought out a version of the Rose reestablishing the original text. It can be had through Vandoren's musical library. I agree that as this isn't music to be performed, the "Urtext" idea isn't all that important. I find the Carl Fischer edition eminently musical.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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