 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-14 04:44
Attachment: Klose turn.jpg (256k)
I have a very sharp 9th grade student who has played the 2nd book of Rubank duets is able handle harder, longer ones, so I've begun playing the Klose Fifteen Grand Duets with him. We started playing the first duet and I quickly started to remember how many misprints there are (in the Fischer edition). My student is picking up on errors I've taken for granted and ignored for a long time. After crossing out a couple of stray dots and fixing a couple of wrong rhythms, he noticed a comma, like a tiny breath mark under one of the turns (see the attached graphic). He thought it was an odd place for a breath, and I assumed at first it was a misprint and that a sharp sign was intended. But then I noticed that this notation occurs several more times, so that I'm sure they aren't mistakes. I've never noticed it before - the comma is very small and I've never had my attention drawn to it in 50 years of playing these duets.
Does anyone know what it means? My first intuition from context is still that it means to raise the lower auxiliary. But it would be interesting to know for sure.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-14 22:00
I am not familiar with this music.
Is there a moment just before the pick-ups where it is obvious to breathe? I ask because I actually would NOT have a problem with a breath at that point just before the "assumed notes" of the turn.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-14 23:10
Paul, can you see the symbol I'm asking about? I ask only because when I open the attachment, it's too small too see and I have to blow it up larger. The mark is definitely associated with the turn sign and is in
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-14 23:29
Attachment: Klose turn 3.jpg (475k)
Attachment: Klose turn 2.jpg (733k)
The mark is in the middle of an already fairly short legato phase. The two attachments give you a little more context. The second excerpt includes another similar turn (with a sharp sign penciled in by the teacher I was studying with at the time) without a printed mark, even though the context is otherwise the same but up a scale degree.
If it does suggest a breath, it's not a suggestion I'd take seriously. The phrases are already short and breathing before each turn is unnecessary.
Karl
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2015-04-14 23:45
Finally found one, in the allegro of #12. Sure looks like a breath mark to me, but where are you supposed to take the breath? Given the placement one would guess between notes 1 and 2 of the turn which to my mind is very odd.
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-15 04:57
Ok, then this IS just the addition of a fraction of silence before the "Up/Down/Back Again" bit.
This reminds me of an intense workshop many years ago at Northwestern where Ray Still was coaching students through the Mozart C minor Serenade. Mr. Still was adamant about having a 'BREAK' in the sound within the third measure just before the turn.
I think that this is sorta what Klose is looking for. It makes the ornament more accented.
..........Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-15 17:02
Paul Aviles wrote:
> This reminds me of an intense workshop many years ago at
> Northwestern where Ray Still was coaching students through the
> Mozart C minor Serenade. Mr. Still was adamant about having a
> 'BREAK' in the sound within the third measure just before the
> turn.
>
>
> I think that this is sorta what Klose is looking for. It makes
> the ornament more accented.
>
That's an interesting idea. I'd like to hear what that sounds like in practice. It might be worthwhile for me to see if I can find exemplar recordings - YouTube recordings of the C minor Serenade might be a good starting point.
Thanks.
Interestingly, I haven't found anyone either here or in another forum (Orchestra Librarians) where I posted about this who has even seen it anywhere else, much less knows for certain what it is. One friend on the OLI forum suggested finding a copy or facsimile of the original edition of the Klose method (which was probably first published in the mid-1840s, I imagine) to see if he explains his markings in some sort of preface or glossary. There's nothing in my 1946 edition.
Karl
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2015-04-15 19:20
Now here is something interesting, if you go to the old 1879 IMSLP copy of Klose the mark is not a , but a . Now since a turn is usually slurred does that mean the lowest note is legato tongued?
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
Post Edited (2015-04-15 19:25)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-15 20:35
Bill, I'm not sure where you saw the periods, but here are the ones from the first duet that I've been using, but from the 1879 IMSLP edition (published by Jean White in Boston with no editor cited) - these are two complete pages still with the commas, which are here printed *above* the turn sign *and* the slur.
I'd still tentatively buy Paul's account of Ray Still demanding a space before the turn, but then wonder why the marking is applied to only a few of the turns (two that I can find in this duet), while in exactly identical contexts elsewhere in the duet the marking isn't there.
Curioser and curiouser...
Karl
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Author: bill28099
Date: 2015-04-16 02:55
Ok, Grand Duet #12 3rd page, page 162 of the book 3rd line from the bottom is definitely a . I found yours and it's a , for sure. So now we have both commas and periods to wonder about. Now your comma is above and my period is below if that makes any difference.
A great teacher gives you answers to questions
you don't even know you should ask.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-16 03:29
I've asked a violinist colleague if he's ever seen this in any of the Classical period violin study materials his teachers used. If this is unique to Klose, then it's easy to say "who cares." If it was shorthand for some performance practice of the time, it would be a useful thing to know.
Karl
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2015-04-16 05:42
In _4.pdf in the line previous to the one with the marked turn, a comma appears just before the triplet figure, under the slur. This is unusual as well, but at least there it looks like an expressive break or pause.
This may support Paul's theory, except that it also may indicate that, when used in a turn, the break/pause should be after the first note of the figure, not before it. Hearing these examples both ways in my head (admittedly not the best fidelity) I seem to prefer the "after first note" version. But I have no idea what was intended.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2015-04-17 00:12
Quote:
Ok, then this IS just the addition of a fraction of silence before the "Up/Down/Back Again" bit.
This reminds me of an intense workshop many years ago at Northwestern where Ray Still was coaching students through the Mozart C minor Serenade. Mr. Still was adamant about having a 'BREAK' in the sound within the third measure just before the turn.
I think that this is sorta what Klose is looking for. It makes the ornament more accented.
I think if a composer/editors wanted to show a break between the main pitch and the turn, they would have notated the turn as 32nds or gracenotes and used slurs to show the groupings. At any rate, I can't imagine why anyone would ever break up a turn in the way you describe.
The Mozart serenade is a different situation. Firstly, it isn't notated as a turn but as an eighth with two sixteenth notes with a trill above the eighth. And secondly, the entire octet (or quintet) is playing in unison. (Though I can't see how a break in the Mozart would make sense.) In the Klose, the second voice has an alberti bass-type line, so the first player doesn't really have the opportunity to mess around with the time.
I figured that the breath mark might be some sort of pedagogical marking (where in the beat to start the turn, perhaps?) whose explanatory note is missing.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-17 03:43
You're right, of course, about the way the the Mozart Serenade is notated, which I realized when I looked it up earlier today (I haven't played it in years).
So that leaves me back to wondering what the comma/apostrophe/breath mark means. That it was placed above the slur in 1879 and below the turn sign in 1946 doesn't help much, except to suggest that it doesn't imply any pitch changes in the turn.
If I run across a facsimile of the original edition, it may be explained there. Otherwise, I guess, whatever it means, it has gone out of use and is more or less irrelevant. My violin colleague hasn't ever seen this notation, either, in any of the violin material he studied.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-17 04:09
The "break" is not a break in "TIME" but a break in "SOUND." Silence before a note adds accent.
You're right about the figure being written differently in the Mozart (there's no such thing as a good analogy), but it is the idea of the gesture that is important (the short notes sound more percussive this way). So in our first linked example, you'd land on the written quarter note "C," but instead of playing that as a full eight note (followed by the four thirty-seconds), you'd play it like a sixteenth note and a sixteenth note rest......then the thirty-seconds.
Anyway, I don't know for sure what Klose meant, it just seems like a good idea.
...........Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-17 05:57
Well, yes, but it's B-natural anyway - it's in C Major. Later, when the tune returns in G Major, a confirmation that it's an F-sharp might make sense, though it's obvious without any extra notation.
But then, there's the 1879 edition with the comma above the slur. Why would that say anything about the notes in the turn?
Karl
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-04-17 06:09
In scholarly editions, editorial changes are marked to make it clear that they're different from the original. Thus an editorial slur inserted to match a prior similar slur will have a short vertical stroke in the middle.
I assume that the turn is present in some editions of Klose but not others, or that it occurs in one place but not another. I can't think of any nuance that should be made in the example.
Ken Shaw
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-17 06:28
I only have the two editions - 1879 (IMSLP - no editor cited) and 1946 (Fischer-Bellison - my own copy) to compare. My student has a recent printing of what I think is still the 1946 edition. The turns appear in both editions. There are no indications of editorial changes in the 1946 edition and there is no editor acknowledged for 1879. The difference is in the placement of the mystery comma (or dot, as Bill found in a later duet). Since this music is meant for study and not for performance. I'm not sure how much rigor you can expect in terms of identification of edits - even in major works that *are* performance pieces, Bellison (in his Carl Fischer editions) didn't generally identify what he was revising.
Since we're all just making educated guesses, the answer to my student's question ("what does this mean") has to be, simply, "I don't know" and we'll for the time being just keep ignoring the commas (as all of us have been doing since we first studied the Klose Celebrated Method). If I ever come up with an answer (my curiosity is now fully piqued) I'll come back and report.
Karl
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2015-04-17 20:24
Attachment: Klose .pdf (1863k)
FYI I have a copy of the 1940 edition, edited by Jan A Williams ("Solo Clarinetist of N.Y. Symphony Orchestra, Professor of Clarinet of Institute of Musical Art"), and in the first duet, on the G major melody, I have a turn with an odd-looking, possibly crossed-out comma. On the C major time, it's as you mention above; a definite comma underneath the turn.
I had purchased this from a used book shop a number of years ago, and it is definitely difficult to tell whether some of the markings ("3" indicating triplets is sometimes italicized, sometimes not; also occasional markings like "cresc.") are handwritten in a fountain pen or printed. The ink is so similar to the printing it's really difficult to tell!
I've attached a scan of each section of the duet.
Edit/Add: I've never had a teacher who's taught these so I have no idea on performance! I am also incredibly fascinated by what this marking may have indicated. The text parts of the Williams edition (1940) are the same as in the Bellison also...
Post Edited (2015-04-17 20:27)
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2015-04-17 20:31
Perhaps another thing to consider is the page in Klose about "Demi-Respiration." It certainly sounds to me as if he's using the commas in other spots at least, to indicate tiny, smaller breaths, instead of "full" inhalations.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-17 22:09
Katrina wrote:
> Perhaps another thing to consider is the page in Klose about
> "Demi-Respiration." It certainly sounds to me as if he's using
> the commas in other spots at least, to indicate tiny, smaller
> breaths, instead of "full" inhalations.
I looked at those pages, but of course a commas is in standard use as a breath mark even today. If that's what it means in those turns, then the mysteries are where the breaths or demi-breaths should be taken and why only in those turns that are marked and not in all the others that are in similar or identical contexts.
Karl
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2015-04-17 22:09
There's no physiological need in any of the spots depicted to take a breath, small or large. If it means anything, it must be expressive. However, to modern ears - mine, at least - no particular additional expression seems terribly enlightening in those places either.
Judging from the Klose method vol II I have, Klose was not shy about breath marks, and clearly he intended many of them as expressive breaks, not necessary respiration.
I just spent some time at IMSLP looking at others of Klose's compositions. It wasn't an exhaustive search; I quickly scanned around a dozen randomly selected works looking for gruppettos. I didn't see any with a comma in them. I did see written out probably every variety of turn that Klose could imagine - 3-note, 4-note, 5, 6, 7 etc, inverted variants, turns with imbedded trills, etc.
His music is often thickly ornamented. It looks like silly stuff.
I also searched definitions and varieties of gruppettos. I found nothing about commas.
Klose could well have intended something specific from the commas, but he should have documented it. It's a curiosity, but one apparently confined to a single minor composer.
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2015-04-17 22:19
I agree that Klose puts commas in places I wouldn't think a breath would be necessary.
Also there is a sentence near the bottom of the demi-respiration page (p.14 in my Fischer/Bellison; p. 31 in the Williams I cited above) which may approach the type of expression indicated:
"Demi respiration considered as a pleasing effect in taking a little slower certain notes to which one wishes to give a particular shade or expression."
It's hard to know exactly what he means by this, but one interpretation I can conceive is that this approaches an "accenting" of the note as described above. I don't actually think of it myself as an "accent;" more of an emphasis instead. Of course the musical example after that sentence has no turns in it and all commas are placed outside of slurs!
What also is intriguing me about this whole discussion is the _lack_ of information from folks' teachers! These editions aren't terribly old, and yet, there is no clear answer. Performance practice is so complicated and interesting!
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Author: ArgoPete
Date: 2015-09-18 07:19
Hi I just found this BB when looking for Klosé I am totally new to clarinet but "the art of clarinet playing"by Keith Stein is extremely clear about those marks.
"Good Breathing Habits can be implanted by insisting that the points of breath intake , as Mr Klosé marked them, be memorized and adhered to implicitly. Students are usually persistent in maintaining they do not need breath until every other marked point, but the teacher must insist that breath is used equally as much to mark the completion or separation of musical thoughts (breath phrasing) as to satisfy the requirements of bodily need....... Observe that breath indications occur after the tonic key of each new key. Do no repeat this tonic after taking breath."
There are two pages on it so I shall stop there.
A good sax set is at http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/download.html/1,2161/klosesax.pdf
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Author: Wes
Date: 2015-09-18 23:05
In the "Vade-Mecum du Clarinettiste by Paul Jeanjean, the VI etude has several downward karats where no breath is needed, with the indication "Separez sans respirer", (separate without breathing). These are also phrasing marks.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-09-18 23:26
Wes wrote:
> In the "Vade-Mecum du Clarinettiste by Paul Jeanjean, the VI
> etude has several downward karats where no breath is needed,
> with the indication "Separez sans respirer", (separate without
> breathing). These are also phrasing marks.
Well, we never came up with a certain reading of these marks in the Klose duets, but the ones in the Vade-Mecum aren't the same thing (I included a graphic of the Klose marks in my first post). Jeanjean definitely means those carats to be phrasing marks. The ones in the Klose duets make little or no sense as places to separate (phrase), unless he means to re-articulate the first note of the turn itself under the slur mark that covers the two beats of the figure. I suppose that's possible, although it would be non-standard as both notation and execution of conventional turns.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-09-18 23:38
This is about the Daily Studies at the beginning of the second Klose volume, which feature diatonic scales, arpeggios - major and minor, dominant sevenths, diminished sevenths - thirds and chromatics. Yes, Klose marks a breath after the first note (the tonic eighth-note) at the beginning of each new scale. (And my teachers always taught me to observe those breaths, one of them even marking them larger in red ink to make sure I didn't miss them.) Those are clear, unambiguous breaths and Stein is right about their meaning (whether or not all players agree with his insistence on every one of them).
The ones I questioned are in the Fifteen Grand Duets farther back in Book 2 (if you have a Klose edition that's divided into 2 volumes). I included a graphic of one example in my original post. If you look at them you'll see that they aren't the same thing as the markings in the Daily Studies.
Karl
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Author: ArgoPete
Date: 2015-09-27 05:17
Hi Again
Thank you for the discussion. I found the Library of Congress version of Mr Klosés book which is available for download as a pdf.
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Author: ArgoPete
Date: 2015-09-27 06:50
Attachment: Klose Breath.pdf (244k)
I missed the attachment somehow but the link is http://imslp.org/wiki/File:PMLP77801-kloses-conservatory-method-for-the-clarinet.pdf
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-09-27 19:51
We've already discussed this page. Those breath marks (they are, indeed, breaths or demi-breaths) aren't the same context as the turns I asked about. Likewise their context is different from the phrase marks Wes mentioned in the Vade-Mecum. Look at the JPEG I attached to my original post. They're in the 15 Grand Duets in the second division of the complete book. I'm assuming (see my last post) that he may mean as a stylistic instruction to re-articulate the beginning of the turn, but they simply can't be breath marks where they are. And as a stylistic device they aren't consistent, so that it's hard to induce any kind of rule that covers their meaning.
Karl
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Author: gjmwilliams
Date: 2016-05-23 19:58
Katrina,
I see that you own the Klose Method, ed. J. Williams, ca. 1940? I purchased the same ca. 40+ years ago but lost it to a student I loaned it to some years back. I think I would like to own it again. The edition I had included the entire Rose 32 etudes. Does your edition include those also? I really don't need either the Klose or the 32 cause I already own both of course, but for sentimental reasons would like to own the original edition I had a gazillion years ago. Any ideas? Thanx.
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The Clarinet Pages
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