 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-12-05 00:30
Hi all. Question I have been pondering for a while. With chalemeax and clarinet treatises few in number... And rudely not in English (how dare they!) I find myself wondering how to approach baroque works.
I notice all the collections for grade 1-5 clarinet I have include similar choices of baroque pieces, borrowed from flute and harpsichord repertoire.
But when playing these sort of pieces on clarinet, do u take a more legato approach, or do u attempt to apply the principles of baroque articulation (flute, oboe, recorder) to your playing?
I realise that the limited we know is that playing in those days was much more articulated, even on the chalumeax, but that is as much clarity on the issue I can find. (read Lawson's books and rices one.. As they kindly wrote in English for me)
And I realise I am not playing a baroque instrument, or an instrument with much similarity in tone to its baroque counterpart at all, therefore how do I approach playing that sort of repertoire?
Thanks in advance.
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 20:05
I don't know a lot about this subject, but I assume that you're referring to the Baroque practice of sometimes playing articulated notes for less than their full value. There really are no easy answers to your question.
Your question is part of a larger one: Should we interpret J. S. Bach's music (along with music of other Baroque composers) in a modern way, or should we try to do it exactly as it was done--based on the way we think it was done--in the early 18th century?
I've shared this story before, but here it is again. During my undergrad years, I had a music lit class taught by a Bach purist. He didn't approve of adding crescendos and diminuendos and putting in a ritardando here and there.
I once had a clarinet lesson right after this class, and you can guess what I played--a Bach transcription. I tried to play it in a more "authentic" manner, but my teacher stopped me, not liking what he heard. He's a well-known teacher and performer, but if I mention his name here, I might embarrass him. He said, "If Bach had known that the Romantic period was right around the corner, he'd want it played this way [my way]."
At the time, I thought my teacher was being a bit too self-important, but I've come around to his point of view. I enjoy hearing concert band Bach transcriptions when they're played well, along with the Rascher and Mule saxophone transcriptions of Baroque music. Not everyone agreed with the way Casals played Bach, but I don't think I'd want to hear it any other way.
Check out this great article on the subject:
http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/angst.htm
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 21:12
I enjoy playing trio sonatas a lot, have played a Bach flute sonata on a recital, and play the cello suites for fun. Modern flutes, oboes, and bassoons don't play or sound much like their baroque ancestors, so we shouldn't feel horribly guilty about getting in on the fun. Not sure what you mean by "baroque articulation." A lot of the pieces, especially if you're using an urtext edition, don't have articulation for the 16ths, so it's good to add some slurs. Most of the people I play with have definite opinions on how to do that from their teachers, and I usually just go along, unless there's something totally preposterous. As far as how short the notes should be, I think the best guide is to listen to recordings of really good ensembles that specialize in early music. Any ideology one reads should be tempered by the things good performers do to make something sound. Especially with trio sonatas, you might be playing something conceived for flute or violin, and you might not want to use the same kind of articulation for both.
One thing that's good to do is wade through the C.P.E. Bach and Quantz books that address ornamentation, or at least a good secondary source that's based on them, to get a good idea of the range of things one can and should add in that regard. No accomplished player would have played something straight as it was on the page, so we should be prepared to add and modify stuff within the style.
I like reeds on the light side for baroque pieces (unless you're playing clarino parts), so they're agile and work well with a flute or oboe playing fast.
Haven't messed with chalumeaux. They seem to have been marginal for the big composers, and it's hard for them to stand up against a modern violin, flute or oboe. I've heard some really great non-baroque-specialist performers make baroque pieces sound quite exciting, to the point where I didn't much care how "authentic" everything they did was. The thing is, there have always been performers who stood out--Quantz, Vivaldi, and several of the Bachs, for example--and they didn't do that by playing like everyone else did.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 21:22
dorjepismo wrote:
> One thing that's good to do is wade through the C.P.E. Bach and
> Quantz books that address ornamentation, or at least a good
> secondary source that's based on them, to get a good idea of
> the range of things one can and should add in that regard. No
> accomplished player would have played something straight as it
> was on the page, so we should be prepared to add and modify
> stuff within the style.
Of course you'd get pretty much the German approach (if a general German approach even existed). There was a lot of music composed during the period of Bach and Handel in Italian and French centers. There having been no recordings and limited communication among all the different centers, it isn't hard to imagine that performance practice varied from one musical center to another.
Karl
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 21:28
Interesting topic! My basic belief is that music is alive at the time it is played....there is no dead music, despite what some people claim. I think it is worth the time to study the small resources we have about playing music of different periods and to listen to recordings of people who have devoted their lives to playing that style. On the other hand, because the music lives in your performance, make it your own!
What if you bought a replica Chalumeaux or early 5-keyed clarinet? How would the reality of playing that instrument alter the style you use?
John Gibson, Founder of JB Linear Music, www.music4woodwinds.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 22:06
For example, Nikolaus Harnoncourt: "Baroque Music Today: Music As Speech" Amadeus Press, ppbk 1995.
There seems to be a misconception in some of the posts above that playing 'in a style' and understanding the unwritten conventions of the time suppresses individuality. Not so.
If anything, the reverse is the case.
Tony
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-12-05 22:16
Quote:
Of course you'd get pretty much the German approach (if a general German approach even existed). There was a lot of music composed during the period of Bach and Handel in Italian and French centers. There having been no recordings and limited communication among all the different centers, it isn't hard to imagine that performance practice varied from one musical center to another.
Moreover, the most important performance traditions are often the ones taken for granted (and therefore passed over by treatises). The worst sort of historical performers, for me, consume Quantz, Couperin, et al., abstract from them a set of interpretive "rules," and then apply those rules to music they don't really understand--it's much easier, after all, to commit the intentional fallacy than to come up with any sort of interpretation.
Quote:
But when playing these sort of pieces on clarinet, do u take a more legato approach, or do u attempt to apply the principles of baroque articulation (flute, oboe, recorder) to your playing?
I realise that the limited we know is that playing in those days was much more articulated, even on the chalumeax, but that is as much clarity on the issue I can find. (read Lawson's books and rices one.. As they kindly wrote in English for me)
And I realise I am not playing a baroque instrument, or an instrument with much similarity in tone to its baroque counterpart at all, therefore how do I approach playing that sort of repertoire?
Tony Pay has a great article titled "Phrasing in Contention" (if I remember correctly) that addresses phrasing norms in Classical era music. Much of what he writes can also be applied to Baroque music, insofar as both music's generally benefit from a clarity of contrapuntal texture.
I find that the Quantz articulations don't work particularly well on modern clarinet, which, for me, smooths out a lot of differences between "te" and "de" or even "te" and "ke" (I notice more of a difference on historical clarinets, though I still rarely use the various articulations). One articulation thing I do use is starting notes with the air when I want the impression of an up-bow; the tongue, on clarinet, almost always sounds like a down-bow to me. (Also, to my ears, the slur-two/tongue-two articulation sounds much more idiomatic of Classical music than Baroque, so I generally avoid it in Bach, for example.)
Most the interpretative decisions I make, however, have more to do with the music itself than performance treatises. Bach, for instance, usually makes use of several contrapuntal voices, which give the impression of distinct bass, tenor, alto, and soprano lines even when a single melodic instrument (violin, cello, flute, etc.) is playing. Instead of blurring these parts into a single legato melody, I often make a distinction between them. Furthermore, Bach's pieces usually revolve around 2 or 3 contrapuntal motifs (not the same thing as a motif, which involves rhythms, harmonies, register, etc.), which I attempt to keep in mind when interpreting his music.
At any rate, apologies for that overly brief description--I could write a lot about Bach's music but should avoid boring the bboard.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-12-05 22:49
In addition to the helpful suggestions above, there are a few very definite things you can do to get into the Baroque. One is to buy a copy of Larry Clark's Bach: Six Cello Suites for Clarinet (Carl Fisher Pub. 2014) and take it to a good cellist who knows how to play the suites idiomatically. Ask the cellist to give you lessons. If you transpose well, you can just get the originals and play those selections, under the cellist's direction. You can do the same with baroque music for soprano and alto recorder. Take lessons on how to play them on the clarinet from a good recorder player. Ditto for the Bach flute works. Listen to what the Baroque players say and how they play and just do it on the clarinet. Baroque is a whole genre of music; the clarinet is just one instrument. Get it right in your ear and in your head, and it will come out right on the clarinet.
The more Baroque cello, recorder, and flute music you can play on the clarinet, the more you will learn about Baroque music.
Another thing to do is listen to clarinetists who have made a serious effort to understand the conventions and style of Baroque music and then judge for yourself how successful their efforts have been. If they have fallen short, you will want to ask why and take steps to improve what they have done. If they have hit the mark, then you will want to do likewise. One example is Joseph Heller. Go to his webpage. http://www.josepheller.com/transcriptions. Listen to his transcriptions. What do you think?
There is also a period of transition between Baroque and Classical during which some wonderful music was written by master composers such as L. Boccherini. He wrote several superb works for Cello that might repay serious study by a curious clarinetist. Except for study 5 in Thurson's Passage Studies, Book 2, and one minuet, I'm not sure I've ever seen transcriptions of his work applied to clarinet. That is a loss. (There is, coincidentally, a clarinetist performing today named Luigi Boccherini. but I don't see any performances by them of the composer Boccherini.)
Post Edited (2016-12-06 01:22)
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2016-12-05 22:51
Karl,
Quantz and C.P.E. do differ on some particulars, especially grace notes. I've seen the opinion expressed that Quantz might be closer to a French style.
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-12-05 23:28
Lol thanks everyone
My issue is that as I have an lrsm on recorder. So I have read numerous French, German and Italian treatises. I am aware that slurs were regarded as ugly and only things amateurs did, I am aware that dynamics were achieved by lengthening and shortening notes. In general tells were articulated, and ornamentation was used to the point that every performance was different.
I also play flute and have my diploma on it, and play baroque flute, and am aware that flute and recorder were pretty much interchangeable in this period.
I also have my diploma in violin, and have a baroque violin.
So I could play very authentically as far as if chalumeax playing followed the same conventions as flute and recorder. But then... As it was a mock trumpet maybe it followed their rules, and I am not exposed to baroque trumpet research as of yet.
But playing this very articulated style is not easy on the clarinet. And I see baroque prices in little kids books, and wonder do u just tongue each note, but keep the air going, because that sounds better on the clarinet... Or actually "baroque bulge" on notes and lengthen and shorten notes to match the dynamic effects u want to achieve.
See my frustration is definitely the lack of treatises!
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-12-06 00:03
Sarah,
Let me make the same apology. I wrongly assumed that you were mainly a clarinetist who did not have much theoretical or practical experience with Baroque music. But if you know how to play Baroque on the flute, violin, and recorder, why the hangup in trying to make the transfer to the clarinet? Are your technical skills on clarinet comparable to the skills you have on flute, recorder, and violin? Can you play easily and fluently, for example, through the Rose studies and the Baerman method books III, IV and V? If you can, and technical hurdles are not holding you back, then I am truly puzzled why you cannot mimic on clarinet what you do on flute and recorder when playing Baroque music. The style, articulation, rhythm grouping, and interpretation of ornaments should be essentially the same. If your clarinet skills and ease of performance (embouchure, tonguing, range, endurance, fingering speed and sureness of touch) do not yet equal those you have acheived on your other instruments, that may have to be addressed before you continue.
Post Edited (2016-12-06 00:42)
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-12-06 00:49
No it is just a question.
I know in the piano world, so called "baroque interpretation " is a hybrid
The flute and violin are similar enough to their baroque counterparts to do a decently authentic baroque performance on. Although not everyone chooses to do that.
But... Yes, my clarinet skills do in no way match my ability on my other instruments yet. And I realise our modern clarinet is so far removed from the baroque one that direct transference of baroque interpretation as per the other instruments isn't possible
I know there is a lacking in treatises for chalumeax discussing style for that period. There doesn't seem to be anything online or in books I have bought on baroque and classical clarinet to talk about style, and the issue never seems to be addressed!
Hence why I wanted to know how real people to deal with the issue. As there is so much unknown. And would u just apply info from other woodwind treatises to clarinet, or come at it from a more romantic approach, because it is a romantic instrument we are dealing with?
Definitely my attempts at baroque practises for recorder on clarinet were less than appealing. As the concept of the continuous air on clarinet, rather than stopping the air and bulging it seems contradictory
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-06 01:48
>> And I realise our modern clarinet is so far removed from the baroque one that direct transference of baroque interpretation as per the other instruments isn't possible >>
Not so. You can mimic what's important about earlier clarinet style quite well on the modern instrument.
You may not yourself yet be able to, but that's an imaginative and technical lack, not a function of the nature of the instrument. Harnoncourt himself gave up working with old instruments, because he said that he could get what he wanted more effectively from the more developed instruments and players.
>> And would you just apply info from other woodwind treatises to clarinet, or come at it from a more romantic approach, because it is a romantic instrument we are dealing with? >>
If you're playing baroque or classical music, I'd say you read the text with the assumptions that the players of the period would have brought to it.
Those assumptions belong to THE MUSIC, and inform how it works.
How THE CLARINET works is surely irrelevant.
Tony
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-06 03:56
Tony wrote: "Harnoncourt himself gave up working with old instruments, because he said that he could get what he wanted more effectively from the more developed instruments and players."
Perhaps you meant "gave up working EXCLUSIVELY with old instruments"? Harnoncourt continued to work with old instruments right up until his final performances.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-06 04:10
>> Harnoncourt continued to work with old instruments right up until his final performances. >>
OK, you're right. I didn't check that out properly.
What I'd remembered was that he responded to a request from a period orchestra for him to conduct them by saying that he now refused such invitations "because he preferred to do his 'period' work with modern instruments."
Perhaps what was left out was, "except for my own group."
Does that fit in with what you know about him? Did he guest conduct other period bands?
Tony
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-12-06 04:50
I look at Baroque like a blank canvas and open to your own interpretation, so for me there's a lot of freedom for the performer to do what they feel is right. Almost as much freedom as there is when playing Jazz.
Take these two examples of the Sinfonia from J.S. Bach's Cantata 156:
Heinz Holliger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LNdz43a1I
Burkhard Glaetzner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnQzgpz36UU
Same piece, two great oboists, two different interpretations.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-12-06 05:07
Bear in mind C.P.E. Bach is very much a Classical era composer unlike his dad.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: SarahC
Date: 2016-12-06 08:10
thanks everyone.
Each baroque performance will differ to an extent on what treatises they have studied too As well as where they draw the line between modern and baroque. And everyone makes that choice at a slightly different place, for a multitude of reasons. I er on the more baroque end of the spectrum when playing baroque, but I know that is less normal on some of my instruments than other!
Hence, I was wondering where clarinettists draw the line. I guess that is the question, where do you draw the line between baroque practise, and baroque informed practise when playing the clarinet?
A recorder friend of mine I asked just an hour ago, she reckons all the baroque interpretation stuff of flute and recorder also apply to clari. Which makes things easy for me Now just to get the clarinet to sound good when I do it! lol.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-07 02:02
Tony- Harnoncourt worked with our period band at the Zürich opera from the 70s (long before I joined) up until 2010. I have a copy of a letter he wrote (in German) which I could send to you if you like. It's about the instrument choice for the first Mozart operas he started to do with us on old instruments. Purely in terms of sound, he seems to favour old instruments because of the increased presence of overtones, and what he calls "Rauschen" which translates as hiss or noise. This "noise" in the sound gives the instruments an expressive human quality, which he favoured over the more clinically cleaned up modern instruments. I always think about this when I play something like a throat A-flat using the register key and the "expressive" sound which the instrument forces you to make on a note like that.
The last opera he did with us on period instruments was Idomeneo. Harnoncourt owned two classical clarinet copies by Tutz of instruments in B natural, which he brought with him. He loved the light sound that they produced. I'm not sure how many conductors would invest in two instruments themselves to prevent his players from using A clarinets!
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-07 04:09
Thanks, Liquorice; I certainly didn't know that. I should keep my ear closer to the ground.
Perhaps what he said to us on one of the several occasions we tried to get him to work with us wasn't the whole truth, then. I didn't have anything to do with that myself, so I was just reporting what I'd been told. But he was certainly on record as saying that old instruments weren't obligatory for his ideas to have their effect.
I have to say that though I cited his book with approval, I'm not a wholehearted fan of his own work. It often seems to me to be too much concerned with obtaining striking unwritten crescendo effects rather than with properly representing the background to the musical style. I'm more of the Leonhardt/Bruggen/Kuijken school myself. And I find Mozart's music often achieves its effect rather by contrast – think of the first two bars of the Allegro of K361, where a crescendo in the first bar merely spoils the drama of the juxtaposition of two sorts of music that dominates the whole movement.
I've never played a B clarinet, though of course I've straddled the phenomenon by playing on both Bb and C. You'll know that there's one number on it in Cosi too – Fiordiligi's aria – but funnily enough not the Terzettino, which is in G major on the A clarinet.
I myself routinely try to avoid the 'noise in the sound' that you speak of, preferring to find musical expression through other channels – which of course does involve varying timbre as well as what you might call 'rhythmic nuance'. Though that's in the literature (CPE Bach, Quantz, Leopold Mozart), I feel that how to use it both effectively and unobtrusively has been a quite recent discovery for me.
I like to think of CDF Schubart's description of CPE Bach's keyboard playing: "One is aware of witchcraft without noticing a single magical gesture."
Tony
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-10 02:28
Thanks for your post Tony.
Harnoncourt certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. But he made a huge impression on the members of my orchestra and his productions with us are still considered to be amongst the best we ever did.
One of the things I admired about him was his constant questioning of "why did the composer write THAT"? In the aria No. 10 in Die Entführung, Mozart precedes and follows Constanzes line "Selbst der Luft darf ich nicht sagen", with the special sounds of low register flutes and throat register basset horns (the only aria in this opera to use these instruments). This is a place where Harnoncourt would encourage us to allow "airy" quality of the instruments in those registers to come out (noise!), to better support the text ("Luft"). I could give many other examples of where we weren't required to play with our most "beautiful sound" because of what the music was describing.
I have a slightly different take on the first 2 bars of the allegro in K361. Mozart borrowed this theme note-for-note from Philidor's opera comique Maréchal Ferrant. The opening text in the aria goes like this:
"Je suis douce,
je suis bonne."
I agree that there should be no crescendo through the word "suis", but there is an impetus towards the main words: "douce" and "bonne". So to me, bars 1+2 form a single unit, as do 3+4. There is a movement of energy towards bar two and four (douce and bonne) even if the word "suis" is stressed less than "je". What I understand you describing would be making a diminuendo over two notes in bar one followed by another sort of music in bar two, which is a little different. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well- I could demonstrate easier. But maybe you understand what I mean?
I'm quite fascinated by your ideas on effective and unobtrusive use of rhythmic nuance. I hope you'll explain more of that some time?
Post Edited (2016-12-10 20:23)
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Author: Wes
Date: 2016-12-10 08:44
While apparently not in today's mainstream, Leduc published the Enseignement Complet by A. Perier. There are many etudes in this effort in the style of the baroque masters. Does anyone play these etudes now, besides me? If so, what is your opinion of them?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-15 16:35
Liquorice wrote:
>> Harnoncourt certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. But he made a huge impression on the members of my orchestra and his productions with us are still considered to be amongst the best we ever did.>>
Of course, I’m very sorry that I never got a chance to work with him myself.
>> One of the things I admire about him was his constant questioning of "why did the composer write THAT"? So in an aria like No. 10 in Die Entführung, Mozart precedes and follows Constanzes line "Selbst der Luft darf ich nicht sagen", with the special sounds of low register flutes and throat register basset horns (the only aria in this opera to use these instruments). This is a place where Harnoncourt would encourage us to allow "airy" quality of the instruments in those registers to come out (noise!), to better support the text. I could give many other examples of where we weren't required to play with our most "beautiful sound" because of what the music was describing.>>
For a conductor to discuss the music on that sort of level is very inspiring to enquiring performers.
I suppose I’d characterise this particular case slightly differently though; when I said that I tried to avoid ‘noise in the sound’ I really meant the sort of thing that we associate with a reed that isn’t responding properly. On the other hand ‘timbral variation’ is one of my primary concerns, and I’m one of the people here who wants to say that the word ‘beautiful’ in the phrase ‘a beautiful sound’ is context dependent: see the recent thread:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=447253&t=447253
But of course I also remember that in the early days of period performance, it was common for players to claim that ‘the instruments sound like that’, and it took some time for the believers to accept that perhaps the players just weren’t playing the instruments that well. It’s a difficult line to tread between a ‘chosen’ sound world and a ‘forced’ sound world; we don’t want to sound merely incompetent.
Or indeed, anecdotal. Does even a well-informed and discerning member of the audience really think, Oh, Constanze is singing about ‘luft’ – THAT’S why they sound like that?
And even if they do, is it artistically viable in the context of the opera? It can be a danger, in my view. Of course, it’s a question of degree, and what you produced and what he accepted might have been something I would have endorsed.
>> I have a slightly different take on the first 2 bars of the allegro in K361. Maybe you know that Mozart borrowed this theme note-for-note from Philidor's opera comique Maréchal Ferrant. The opening text in the aria goes like this:
"Je suis douce,
je suis bonne">>
No, I knew none of that. And I suppose my reaction is that it’s rather far-fetched to rely on such a tenuous connection with a text in order to decide such a fundamental question in a score like K361.
>> I agree that I wouldn't make a crescendo through the word "suis", but there is an impetus towards the main words: douce and bonne. So to me, bars 1+2 form a single unit, as do 3+4. There is a movement of energy towards bar two and four (douce and bonne) even if the word "suis" is stressed less than "je". What I understand you describing would be making a diminuendo over two notes in bar one followed by another sort of music in bar two, which is a little different. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this very well - I could demonstrate easier. But maybe you understand what I mean?>>
We had this conversation before, even mentioning K361, in the context of the slow movement of K622: it’s in:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=435607&t=435540&v=t
Perhaps my attitude to all this stuff is more radically different from yours than is obvious at first sight. We had Ferenc Rados do a workshop with the OAE on the Jupiter Symphony a few years ago, and one of the things he said was, “There’s NO SUCH THING as ‘the first violin PART’ in the finale!” That encapsulates the stance in a beautifully counterintuitive way.
I’d say that Mozart’s music is often best thought of as a MOSAIC, in which phrases are placed in juxtaposition without connection.
So Rados had the orchestra play a chunk of the last movement with only one of the elements represented: – e.g., the bit that goes, ‘pom pom pom prrrrrrr ta da” on the various instruments that have it, everyone leaving out all other music apart from a bit of bass line. If you can think of the music in this way, without making a ‘horizontal’ connection between the motif and the rest of the music in any one part, the effect is subtly different, even though you’re not really DOING anything.
My own attitude to K361 grew out of my exposure to the development section in the original version, where the dislocation between pairs of bars like bars 1 and 2 alternates with pairs of bars that ARE similar – the detached crotchets in the second bar become a ‘loving’ appoggiatura. (That ‘discrepancy’ got edited out in the bowdlerised version we were used to in earlier days.)
You’re then free at the beginning of the Allegro to wait (slightly) before bar 2, which can profitably be more abrupt – even, well, FASTER:-)
>> I'm quite fascinated by your ideas on effective and unobtrusive use of rhythmic nuance. I hope you'll explain more of that some time?>>
Yes, I will; though I’m not entirely sure that this is the right place to do it.
Tony
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-16 02:21
Thanks for your reply Tony. Your memory is better than mine :-)
I don't see the connection with Philidor's opera as being all that tenuous. Le Maréchal Ferrant was hugely popular and performed in almost every major music city during the last 4 decades of the 18th century. I think it's highly unlikely that Mozart and most music lovers wouldn't have been familiar with it. Did you ever wonder why Mozart wrote a "Vaudeville" at the end of Die Entführung? Look at Philidor's operas. The fact that he quotes the 4 bars of Philidor's theme exactly note for note can't be a coincidence.
Imagine if a composer in the 1970s or 80s were to have a piece of chamber music in which the unlikely first theme quoted the melody that fits with this text:
"And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain"
I doubt many performers would be able to think about anything other than Frank Sinatra's phrasing when playing that hypothetical composition.
The statement by Ferenc Rados is certainly quite radical (up until now I'd only ever asserted that there is no such thing as the first clarinet part in the finale of the Jupiter!) but definitely gets his point across. The exercise he then did in the workshop sounds like a great idea for any ensemble.
I'd love to hear more about your radically different attitude and ideas on rhythmic nuance. As well as workshops that you do with OAE. Perhaps (hopefully) I can somehow orchestrate for our paths to cross in the not-too-distant future.
Post Edited (2016-12-16 02:24)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-16 10:54
Tony- of course it would also be possible to sing "Je suis bonne, je suis douce" in the way that you describe. But then it might take on a coquettish or even ironic tone. I'm not sure if that would be artistically viable in the context of the opera.
Perhaps because I play mainly opera I'm overly concerned with text in music?
Going back to my Luft example- if the singer lingered slightly on the consonant "Lufffft", rather than "Looooooft" as most singers would prefer, and that was combined with the wind players using the more breathy side of the their tonal spectrum, then I'm sure a discerning audience member would recognise it on some level.
But like you said, it's a matter of degree. Sometimes Harnoncourt got us to do wild things: in Don Giovanni the clarinets quote a tune which Harnoncourt says everyone at the time would have recognised as a bawdy drinking song. Instead of playing it piano as in the score, Harnoncourt required us to play it loudly, out of tune, with much vibrato and a raucous sound. I doubt you would have approved, even if the effect to the audience was crystal clear. I'm sure Harnoncourt wanted this because it also made some commentary on the plot, which would have been the reason why Mozart quoted this song at that point in the opera in the first place. So in that sense, I can still accept it as being artistically viable.
Post Edited (2016-12-16 11:01)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-12-17 22:02
>> Perhaps because I play mainly opera I'm overly concerned with text in music? >>
No, you're quite right to be concerned with text in music. And thanks for your thoughtful posts.
I've played quite a lot of opera on period instruments too, though not as much as you, admittedly: all the Mozart operas, some several times, at Glyndebourne; plus Donizetti (Imelda di Lambertazzi, Les Martyrs), Verdi (Alzira, Falstaff) plus a few others (Rheingold, Dutchman, etc); and the sacred stuff involving singers, like Elijah, Creation, Seasons, St Matthew Passion(!!) etc.
And what I come away with is the impression that a great number of SINGERS are insufficiently concerned with text in music.
We used to be told that our playing of wind instruments would be considerably enhanced by our 'listening to singers'. But that very much depends on the singer. Some of them would do well to listen to some of us.
Mozart once said of a singer: "Raaf is too much inclined to drop into the cantabile. I admit that when he was young and in his prime, this must have been very effective and have taken people by surprise. I admit also that I like it. But he overdoes it and so to me it often seems ridiculous."
The idea of cantabile being a 'surprise' is unthinkable nowadays. I suppose that a movement towards the opposite of cantabile as a norm in both voices and instruments is one way of characterising what I'm after.
So – quite unfairly, since I've never heard any of Philidor's music – I find I want to say that despite the thematic resemblance you point out, I'm not very inclined to allow what a second-rate modern singer might possibly want to do with the text and music of a second-rate opera by a second-rate composer determine my parsing and understanding of the first theme and subsequent musical argument of possibly the best large wind ensemble piece of all time, written by an undoubted genius.
Tony
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-12-17 22:11
Tony,
I presume you played the Mendelssohn arrangment of St. Matthew. How does it work with clarinets in place of the lower oboes?
I've been on the search for the Philidor aria Liquorice mentions--ashamed to say I knew of Philidor only through the game of chess rather than opera music. Curious to hear his works now.
Post Edited (2016-12-17 22:11)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-12-18 03:50
To be fair, I've never actually heard any of Philidor's music performed either (A recording of Le Maréchal Ferrant does exist though). I just went to study the score of the aria and read up on this composer, who I had also never heard of, because I found the use of his theme by Mozart to be relevant.
I've now been back to the Philidor score to examine the rest of the text. In this aria, much as in Rosina's famous "Una voce poco fa" by Rossini, we realise that Philidor's Claudine is actually a little package of dynamite. Claudine sings that, even though she can be "douce" and "bonne", if Colin (her love interest) marries this other woman, she will strangle her. So there is certainly dramatic scope for the singer to sing douce and bonne in an ironic way. Your description of playing bars 2 and 4 slightly late and fast and basically in a different character would fit with this irony.
But perhaps that's neither here nor there. In the end I have to agree with your statement:
"I'm not very inclined to allow what a second-rate modern singer might possibly want to do with the text and music of a second-rate opera by a second-rate composer determine my parsing and understanding of the first theme and subsequent musical argument of possibly the best large wind ensemble piece of all time, written by an undoubted genius."
Don't even get me started on second-rate singers! Singers in general seem to be the last to come to the table in terms of trying to understand what earlier composers were actually about. For many of them it's all and only about their voice. Another great thing about Harnoncourt, is that he somehow managed to get even the stupidest singers to sing intelligently!
Tony, I've very much enjoyed your posts on this topic and have plenty of food for thought regarding Mozart scores as mosaics and non-cantabile as a norm. Thank you.
Post Edited (2016-12-18 11:06)
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The Clarinet Pages
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