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Author: TamarClarinet
Date: 2016-06-20 12:43
Hi folks,
I've been asked to play the Krommer Eb concerto with a local orchestra, which is very exciting. Of course I have the music, but I am wondering if there are different versions or interpretations of the concerto that I could get sheet music for. Let me explain:
There are a couple of bars of the concerto where Franz seems to have not bothered to write anything other than a whole note in the bar, either because he didn't feel the need to write anything more complex or because he wanted to leave it to the clarinettist to do their own thing. For example - I don't have bar numbers so bear with me - bars 2-5 after figure 22 in the third movement, which is 18-15 bars from the end.
It's just a low F, high D, low E, high E. Not terribly exciting in the climax of the music.
Now I haven't listened to that many versions, but I do know that when Sharon Kam plays it in her recording, she has a load of semiquavers instead in that bar. It sounds much more exciting. What's more, she then continues playing through the finale, instead of stopping on the long trilled G and final F that the sheet music stops on.
Is this an accepted interpretation of the music, and is there sheet music of it? Of course, technically I can do it by ear and transcribe what she plays, but if there is sheet music of it, or of any other interpretations of the music, that would be much preferable.
Thank you!
Sam
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-06-20 16:13
The point of writing whole notes is leaving it to the soloist to improvise the decoration. You learn this by playing baroque music, which gives free range for improvisation.
Quantz, On Playing the Flute, has pages and pages of patterns, and Telemann's Methodical Sonatas give a major composer's illustration of how its done.
That's how I learned to do it, teaching my fingers which patterns fit the harmony and come out right at the end. For me, there's no short cut. I don't know Sharon Kam's performance, but she's an excellent player, so I would trust her.
You can certainly copy her performance, but it's far better to do your own.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-06-21 03:44
There is a similar occurrence of 4 bars containing only whole notes in K622 first movement, bars 216-219.
You can take the view that this passage requires embellishment, and some people have done so.
On the other hand, you can take the view that Mozart was creating a sense of mystery by leaving a sort of rapt stillness at that point in the solo line. (There is a similar passage in the piano concerto K488.)
I myself feel a sense of mystery at that point in K622; it foregrounds the pulsing three-note motivic phrases in the orchestra before going on with the more dramatic argument in the following tutti.
(And if Mozart had also felt that, how else could he have written it?-)
The situation is a bit different in the Krommer, of course. But you can make it work quite well without filling it in, remembering that there is an expressive dimension to the variety of SOUND you make on those notes.
There is no OBLIGATION to improvise, notewise. And the idea that you should TRUST Sharon Kam is well wide of the mark.
Tony
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