 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2017-10-30 16:14
Guys,
With this board's layout being a bit old-fashioned, we could use a some different kind of exchange sometimes.
How about posting Gems you found on youtube? Whatever, you like - I've found that some most exciting projects don't get anything close to the number of clicks they'd deserve.
Let me start with the Channel "Boxwood&Brass". They're a small(ish) formation playing on historical instruments and seem be work a lot on Beethoven, so that's 2 things I love combined.
Check out their absolutely unique Beethoven's 7th "Harmonie" version. So rad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYs_1E4qC4
Apparently this arrangement was made in 1816, so it's not unrealistic at all that Beethoven was also performed this way. What an entirely different approach.
Best regards
Christian
Post Edited (2017-10-30 16:18)
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2017-10-30 17:29
They are nice group and colleagues of mine. When I used to wear my period instrument hat I would work with them regularly.
The Beethovwn arrangement you mention is considered to be an arrangement done by Beethhoven himself. A lot of orchestral and opera overtures and arias were arranged for winds in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It made the music more accessible to the ‘common’ folk and allowed the aristocracy the chance to listen over dinner etc.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-10-30 18:19
Very unlikely to have been Beethoven himself – though S.A.Steiner (the publisher of both the arrangement and the original symphony in 1816) claimed that Beethoven 'supervised' it.
It is true that some people (eg you, here) 'consider it' to have been done by Beethoven; but then nowadays people 'consider' lots of things to be true;-)
See:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/lookup.php/Klarinet/2004/10/000225.txt
...for more details.
Tony
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2017-10-30 19:12
Thanks for the link Tony, I shall digest.
I've never done a huge amount research into this so apologies for my ignorance.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2017-10-30 20:56
Tony- in the link you posted, you mentioned wanting to avoid transposing “that way round”. The parts I have are for C clarinet (except the beginning of the 2nd movement, which has a low E on the B-flat clarinet). Did you play this piece on B-flat clarinet??
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2017-10-30 21:16
So concert bands, in one way or another can be traced back all the way to the 18th century? I wasn't remotely aware of that! Thanks!
Did it make music more accesible or rather affordable (for the audience)
The Crusell is amazing, how does this artist manage to make the fingerings on this instrument seem so easy?
It seems to me the music interpreted on these instruments becomes more lighthearted, a thought I'd reject before I got more familiar with the "historically informed" practice. One day, people like Vincenco Casale will hopefully be seen in the greatest Concert Halls.
While you're at it, please add a German clarinet BBoard and one for Harmony instruments
Post Edited (2017-10-30 21:16)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-10-30 22:03
Liquorice wrote:
>> Tony- in the link you posted, you mentioned wanting to avoid transposing “that way round”. The parts I have are for C clarinet (except the beginning of the 2nd movement, which has a low E on the B-flat clarinet). Did you play this piece on B-flat clarinet?? >>
On C, apart from those few bars (26?), which I played on the Bb.
I had, I seem to remember, a 'proper' printed part that was entirely transposed for Bb clarinet, and a 'crappy' part that might even have been cut out physically from a score and photocopied. So rather than transpose the decent Bb clarinet part 'the other way around from usual' (I'd of course learnt to transpose C parts on the Bb clarinet routinely as a young player) I decided to put the whole piece into Sibelius and give myself a better performing experience.
You probably now have better parts than I did at the time.
I haven't heard the Boxwood and Brass Beethoven disc, but I liked very much another that they did of pieces by Tausch and others.
I'm not particularly taken with Casale's effort. Of course he deserves to be congratulated; but in fact the fingering problems yield to practice without that much difficulty. On the other hand, he accepts the tonal characteristics of his instrument too readily for my taste; so a note with a 'hooty' quality comes out always as hooty without regard to its musical significance. You need to play both 'against' as well as 'with' the tendencies of your instrument, and of course an excellent player always does so on both early and modern instruments.
If you realise that, of course, then you see that much of what is written here about THE sounds of instruments, mouthpieces, etc is just rubbish from naive players.
I haven't recently taken on the current purveyors of this criminal attitude because I've realised over the years that it's a losing battle on the BBoard.
Tony
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-10-30 23:09
Many recorder companies produce cheap but serviceable plastic (or "ecoplastic") copies of historically famous wooden recorders. For example, the Aulos 700 is a copy of a Haka instrument, ZenOn makes plastic copies of Stanesby and Bressen instruments and so on with the various Yamaha recorders. To professional recorder players, these instruments do not duplicate the qualities of the original, but for beginners they provide an entrance point to the historical recorder world and a way to gain technical skill that can later be transferred to a better wooden replica.
Would it be preposterous for a large company to produce copies of historical clarinets cheaply in plastic (or rubber) to serve a similar purpose? So, for reasonably low price, a clarinetist could explore how it feels to play a 6-key or a 12-key instrument. The latest student plastic Boehm instruments from Buffet can be had for under $600.00. They have a decent modern bore, decent keywork, and play fairly well in tune. So for the same price or less why not a few choices in historical clarinets? I do realize that the mouthpiece design might pose a hurdle because it would probably have to be made especially for the model in question.
If cheap plastic historical clarinets were available, would a sizable market open up for them because of the low price?
Post Edited (2017-10-30 23:11)
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Author: Kalashnikirby
Date: 2017-10-31 01:55
seabreeze, that'd be a dream coming true, only... I feel like most people, especially beginners, wouldn't at all care for anything like that, it's a different ideal.
Tony, thanks for your insight. I've discovered for myself that an instruments "sound", will be secondary when looking for a new one and I won't switch mouthpieces anymore, because they don't make me better. I like working with what I have and overcoming charecteristics of my instrument that some people presume to be incompatible with certain music.
Do you mean by "accepting tonal characteristics" that his embouchure isn't flexible enough? Some notes may have sounded flat, I'm not sure, but I just thought it was due to this instrument's difficulties - but I cannot comment on what it is like to play on these instruments. Perhaps you could elaborate on the differences.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-10-31 22:34
>> Do you mean by "accepting tonal characteristics" that his embouchure isn't flexible enough? >>
It's not for me to say what he needs to do technically. He doesn't hear the need for either tonal variety or tonal consistency; so the performance is, for me, what I can only describe as, 'no good'. It doesn't sufficiently represent what I take the piece to be. (The conducting doesn't help, either.)
There are many dimensions in which flexibility is required. Embouchure, tongue position, degree of support and so on all interact dynamically in real time to deliver the musical intention, especially on these instruments which are of necessity acoustically less than optimal on many notes.
I had my own go at these pieces on a 9-key Grenser copy some 25 years ago. Perhaps the most effective criticism I can offer is the recording we then made:
https://open.spotify.com/album/4JwRUgtbiDOZLKW3vzsuC8
Make of that what you will.
Tony
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-11-01 04:39
Thanks for the links to the 3 Crussell Concertos with you performing on the 9-key Grenser copy. Your approach is clear and vigorous with great rhythmic demarcation and resounding climaxes. You bring out more of a ringing clarinet sound than many who hue closer to a softer recorder-like sound on the period clarinets and you certainly give the lie to any misconception that old clarinets were limited in agility. I have several questions. What pitch was your clarinet and the orchestra tuned to? It seems to be that one striking difference in the sound of this Grenser (and many other period clarinets I have heard) is that the lowest tones of the chalumeau do not have the depth and resonance of post-Romantic era clarinets. Fortissimo in the clarion and altissimo sound like fortissimo but fortissimo at the bottom is at best mezzo-forte and rather veiled in timbre. So when you play the same concertos on a modern instrument clarinet, do you hold back in the chalumeau in deference to the sound of the period instrument or do you play full strength?
More broadly speaking, when you play any baroque or classical era piece, on a modern instrument do you let the sound and response of the older instrument significantly shape your performance?
Another more technical question. In the Baroque and Classical eras it seems clear that most clarinetists played the mouthpiece with the reed turned up toward the upper lip. According to Kornel Wolak, this ubersichblasen (as opposed to the untersichblasen style used today) occasioned a method of articulation called "diaphram puffs and glottal stops" that players felt most closely approached the vocal way singers articulated. The sound was begun not with a tongue stroke but with a glottal "GA" sound and a puff of air. Kornel Wolak in the link below describes this style of articulation that was most probably used by J. X. Lefevre and other famous players.
Would time practicing in this style with the reed on top and articulation done by glottal means be worthwhile for a player attempting historical authenticity in baroque and classical pieces? Have you experimented with this?
https://clarinet.org/2017/10/06/articulation-types-for-clarinet--kornel-wolak
Finally, are there techniques you use on historical clarinets that do not work well on modern clarinets?
Post Edited (2017-11-01 05:15)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2017-11-01 15:41
Robert wrote:
>> I have several questions. >>
I will answer your questions briefly below; but I want to say at the outset that those questions – and the answers – are very tangential to my motives for posting the link.
Actually, I surprised myself. It's very out of character for me to tout my wares about the place, and I normally refrain from criticising my colleagues' performances. But sometimes, after description hasn't worked, demonstration is the only remaining way to bring musical differences into focus. If that doesn't work in its turn of course, then we're lost.
What I notice most about what you write is how technocentric it is, like so much of what we see here. It's 'the clarinet' that has this character, it's 'the type of instrument' that plays like that, it's 'the tonguing technique' that gives this result, it's 'whether or not you have the reed uppermost', it's...
Whereas, how I approach the matter is to ask myself, what does the music seem to want? Then I try to do that with whatever I have at my disposal.
An obvious thing that the Crusell seems to want is varying phrase lengths. That involves being able to create legato groups involving varying numbers of notes, and requires tonal control that the instrument sometimes resists. My criticism of Casale is that he pays little or no attention to this requirement. On the other hand, I think you can hear me paying attention to it.
There are ways of giving the music 'what it wants' that can benefit from some knowledge of 'what they did routinely', as I tried to describe for example in 'Phrasing in Contention'. And the notion that you can bring out a note by slightly lengthening it and shortening its subsequent, putting the third note in the sequence in its correct place whilst maintaining the timbre constant, is also useful.
But I don't start from that. These instruments, those techniques, are tools for me to generate musical expression. "Tools, not rules" might be an appropriate mantra.
Your questions:
The pitch is A=430Hz; I don't find the chalumeau to be 'at best mf' – in fact, many modern players underplay the importance of the chalumeau, and I don't myself hold back; I try to do the same thing on a modern instrument as I try to do on a period instrument (but see 'Phrasing in Contention', which is about how we read the musical notation of the period); I do use varieties of tongue and glottal action in articulation; I don't regard ubersichblasen as representing any serious option for myself: it's taken long enough for me to get where I am and my upper teeth are too long for it anyway; there are no techniques in particular that apply only to the period instrument.
Tony
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The Clarinet Pages
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