 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: MSK
Date: 2017-01-22 19:22
Yesterday I had the privilege of taking my teen son (also a clarinetist) to hear Richard Stoltzman and the American String Quartet perform Mozart and Brahms quintets. I have only had the chance to hear live performances by internationally recognized professionals on any instrument a few times in my life and of course it was a first for my son. At least for a little whil, my aspiring clarinetist son was mesmerized by classical music. Stoltzman's style isn't my favorite, but I still it was a great treat for me to hear him.
Although not a professional, I did take private lessons through college and presently play with a community orchestra. The Mozart Quintet was my recital piece one year so I have it nearly memorized. Obviously Stoltzman has some unique aspects to his style with respect to vibrato, bending some notes, and his style of articulation and dynamics. I could swear I heard improvisational embellishments added in throughout the work. There seemed to be extra notes such as trills, ornaments, and grace notes that I don't remember. Also once or twice it seemed that he was playing some of the higher notes a third lower than I remember them. Since it was a live recording, I have no way of listening again to verify my observations. Has anyone else noticed this sort of embellishment in his performance? I'm not judging - just curious.
Of other note, it was the violist rather than headliner Stolzman who spoke to the audience the few times the performers wished to add to the program notes. Is that usual?
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Author: kdk
Date: 2017-01-22 19:55
Improvisation and added embellishments have become the norm based on critical study of Mozart's own style of performance.
If you memorized an older edition, it has perhaps been supplanted by a newer critical edition from Baerenreiter that may explain the note differences.
I would think that the leader of the quartet would be the most likely spokesperson, but that's a matter for the performers to decide. I haven't heard very much live chamber performance, either, but I would expect audience interaction to vary from one ensemble to the next.
I'm curious about what you meant by "bending some notes" as a part of his playing style. I haven't listened to much of Stoltzman's recent playing, but I don't remember anything like that except maybe in the Bernstein Sonata or Copeland Concerto. Do you actually mean bending as in Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw?
Karl
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2017-01-22 20:15
Agree with Karl; a fair amount of ornamentation and improvisation was common and expected for soloists until a good bit through the nineteenth century, so "authentic" performance of pieces from that time should probably include some of it. Although Rossini once said to a soprano who had just sung one of his arias, "That was very nice, madam. Who wrote it?" Microtones maybe not so much, though good quartets take liberties with the even tempered tuning system. Whether we as twenty-first century players do it in a way that's appropriate to the pieces we're playing, though, is the important question, and one that really good performers answer in a lot of different ways.
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Author: MSK
Date: 2017-01-22 21:38
Not being a professional musician nor recently in lessons, I wasn't aware that interpretation had changed since I was a student in the 1980s. I looked at my sheet music edition of the Mozart Quintet. It's Hinrichsen copyright 1957. My sheet music for the Mozart Concerto is Schirmer 1959. The quartet recording I have probably heard most often is David Shifrin from 1985. I suppose I have heard many other artists on the radio, but often they aren't identified. Maybe it's time for and updated collection!
By "bend a note" I meant using embousure to intentionally change the pitch of a sustained note - for artistic affect not intonation adjustments. I associate it more with jazz.
Thanks
Post Edited (2017-01-22 22:28)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-01-22 22:53
I remember a nice scoop from RS near the end of the first Brahms sonata (on the last of the three repeated Bs). Bought the CD for Richard Goode; keep listening to it for the Stoltz's schmaltz.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-01-22 23:38
Some good recordings of the Mozart Quintet to listen to are by Tony Pay (on a period instrument), Yona Ettlinger, Harold Wright, Sabine Meyer, Sean Osborn (he uses lots of ornamentation, especially on the YouTube performance of the last movement), and Anthony McGill. Also more performances on period instruments by Colin Lawson and Eric Hoeprich.
Post Edited (2017-01-22 23:45)
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2017-01-23 01:40
Stoltzman was always pretty uninhibited, but I think there's a lot more acceptance of trying to recapture period performance practices now than there used to be. When I was in school in the '70s, people, including my teacher at a well-known conservatory, would become irate if you did irresponsible things like play something other than the cadenza from the Quintet in the slow movement of the Concerto, or start some of the trills on the upper note.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-01-23 02:01
Yes, Neidich is very smooth, flowing, and spontaneous on that Mozart recording. In my time, the approach to Mozart, especially in the Clarinet Concerto has shifted dramatically more than once. The Marcellus recording on the modern A clarinet was the landmark for many till the movement to recapture the charm and range of the basset clarinet took hold and some were fearful of betraying lack of scholarship and seriousness if they dared to perform the concerto on anything but either a modern basset clarinet or a period instrument or period replica. Now the tide seems to have shifted once more and it is permissible for performers with prestigious orchestras to perform the piece again on the modern clarinet without extended range or claims of historical authenticity. I'm not sure if this has come about because scholarly attention has shifted from the nature of the exact instrument intended and resettled on the breadth of ornamentation and variety that Mozart probably welcomed or something else, but it is nice to see Anthony McGill, for example, feeling that he can play Mozart with the New York Philharmonic under the regular conductor and not have to drag a basset clarinet into the middle of an open air concert in the park.
McGill's melodic and stylistically consistent cadenzas and ornamentation of the Concerto in this park concert may be of some interest. No scoops or anything like that. And his control of timbre in a very difficult acoustic environment is admirable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJhmQG98pXc.
Post Edited (2017-01-23 20:25)
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Author: ClarinetRobt
Date: 2017-01-23 03:44
I'm sure memory is going to fail me, but it it seems like in the late 80s the thought of adding ornamentation to Mozart, notably in a repeated pass, started to become a thing. When we played one his octects in college we experimented with some tasteful embellishments. We thought we were being utterly crazy and frontiersmen. It seemed like we were defiling sacred ground with our very preplanned improv.
I think it adds something to the performance (excluding pitch bending perhaps). And Mozart would probably would have loved it...which it kinda makes it all cool.
~Robt L Schwebel
Mthpc: Behn Vintage
Lig: Ishimori, Behn Delrin
Reed: Legere French Cut 3.75/4, Behn Brio 4
Horns: Uebel Superior (Bb,A), Ridenour Lyrique, Buffet R13 (Eb)
Post Edited (2017-01-23 23:03)
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