 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: baleinebleue
Date: 2019-03-19 03:45
Normally accidentals reset after a barline, but in this piece there are none. What is the accepted way of playing the accidentals in this piece? Thanks.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-03-19 04:21
In anything I've done without barlines the accidental (or the chromatic, if there's no key signature either) only applied to the one note.
It seems as though there are only two ways to do it - either it lasts until the next chromatic marking cancels or replaces it, or it doesn't persist at all. I think having it persist potentially half-way down the page or farther is asking too much of some our feeble memories. I can't even remember the key signature in the old Broadway books where they don't repeat it at the beginning of every staff.
Karl
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2019-03-19 20:29
If a composer doesn't know or care or specify about a confusing element, any interpretation is acceptable.
Post Edited (2019-03-19 20:30)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-03-19 22:34
I've just spent a few minutes looking through several 20th century unaccompanied *a-metric* (no bar lines) clarinet solos and am a little surprised by what I see. In only one example by George Perle (Three Sonatas) does the composer explicitly tell the performer "An accidental affects only the note it immediately precedes (and tied notes)." So, is Perle an outlier or an exemplar of "the accepted way" of handling this?
It turns out that of the small sample I've plucked out of my music drawer, neither Penderecki, Berio, Bucchi nor Cahuzac gives the performer any instruction. Nor can you really find any consistent convention by looking at the music. They all seem to have considered chromatic changes to have some kind of persistent life, since many flats and sharps are cancelled by an explicit natural sign on the note's next occurrence. Penderecki (Prelude) *seems* to regard any persistence only in the same octave. But you really have to assume that from the specific contexts.
The four I'm looking at seem to be inclined either to think of the end of the staff as the end of a note's chromatic version or just assume that the performer will have forgotten about the sharp or flat way back in the preceding staff. I have to make a fair leap of faith and accept intuitive judgments that the F in the middle of the fifth staff is not supposed to be affected by the F# near the beginning of the 3rd or 4th staff. But that's my ear telling me how I think the note *should* sound.
So, I have to agree with Ken - if there's no explicit instruction, you have to make a musical choice based on the context, and whatever choice you make, if you can justify it, is acceptable.
Karl
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Author: Jarmo Hyvakko
Date: 2019-03-21 10:55
I remember having played that piece quite a lot once in my lifetime. I checked very quickly the first page of the piece. No rules said there, but it is very clear, that the accidentals refer only to the one note. When ever there is an accidental it occurs again and again or a natural sign appears
As i remember following that rule doesn't lead to any musical problems through that piece. It is quite easily heard as the music is so "semi-tonal".
A very nice piece! Opens possibilities to even quite wild interpretations. Henri Tomasi is one of those sadly underestimated composers. Try also the introduction et danse!
Jarmo Hyvakko, Principal Clarinet, Tampere Philharmonic, Finland
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