 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2019-06-05 20:26
Very nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCmaPu7WO0g&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3eT4XM4h0z-cGPUpIVtltDiCpF_sPJet_umDsfLZSEN8yK88Xszj99VM0
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-06-05 20:38
Is anyone else uncomfortable seeing the clarinetist with his back to the pianist. Chamber music has for me always involved eye contact as well as careful listening. Even if it's only "optics," this looks like a very subordinate relationship, not a collaborative one. I know, both of them still have ears, and a great deal of the collaboration will have been done in rehearsal, but it just doesn't look right to me.
Karl
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2019-06-05 20:56
Thanks Ken!
I was only familiar with JeanJean's Arabesques from back in my high school/college days, and had never heard the Prelude. I was surprised in listening...is the vibrato written into the piece?
Fuzzy
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2019-06-06 00:12
>>Is anyone else uncomfortable seeing the clarinetist with his back to the pianist.
It is what resulted that is important. I was surprised at how well they played together, so I appreciate the performance all the more.
I got the link because I am a member of the Paul JeanJean Facebook group. More there if you like JeanJean.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2019-06-11 09:00
...Just to be sure I was clear: my question about vibrato was an honest one (not sarcastic). His vibrato seems beautifully deliberate and controlled. I am curious whether vibrato is more broadly accepted in classical music today, or whether the Prelude actually indicates a vibrato should be used (or, whether the vibrato is just the artistic license taken by the performer in this example.)
Thanks,
Fuzzy.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-06-11 14:01
I think I have yet to see any piece of music call for vibrato. This is up to a performer. I believe he is using diaphragmatic vibrato (perturbation of the dynamic rather than pitch associated with lip vibrato). Beautiful, tasteful playing with a lovely sound that seemed like it would carry through an orchestra.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2019-06-11 15:12
I have seen many pieces of music call for vibrato, mainly by French composers or Italian (eg. Bellini and Puccini)
I haven't seen the score for this Jeanjean piece, but I have seen vibrato called for in several of his etudes. Sometimes he writes "sans stances ni vibrato" as in the beginning of part 6 of the "Vade-Mecum", which implies that playing WITHOUT vibrato can also be used as a special effect. Later in that etude he writes "Vibrez progressivement" and "Grand vibrato", which shows that he expected clarinettists to be able to apply varying degrees of vibrato to their playing.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-06-11 19:25
I have seen "vib" or "non vib," which would certainly imply that vibrato was expected otherwise. I'd have to go back through a whole drawer of music to find specific pieces, but my impression is that they are mostly by 20th century French and American composers.
The Prélude et Scherzo on IMSLP is for bassoon and piano, which seems to be the original version (there's no arranger credited). Vibrato is more universally accepted as part of espressivo than it is for a clarinet. I see no markings for "vib" in the bassoon part, but many "ten." marks over tied notes and a number of "espressivo" and "molto espressivo" markings, all of which would probably call for vibrato from a bassoonist. Maybe the clarinetist is taking a more bassoonistic approach.
Or, maybe vibrato is just part of his normal approach to sustained tone.
Karl
Post Edited (2019-06-11 19:30)
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2019-06-11 22:36
Thank you all for the insightful information about the use of vibrato in JeanJean's (and others') work. Clearly, I never fully understood the markings I read in "classical" music. Pretty cool stuff!
Fuzzy
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2019-06-12 04:18
Paul Jeanjean, so far as we know, made no recordings, but some of his French contemporaries did. Prosper Mimart, who premiered the Debussy Rhapsody, recorded Schubert's Shepherd on the Rock circa 1920, gives ample evidence on that recording that he used vibrato but nothing so pronounced as the British player R. Kell would later. (In the French players' section, the website Clarinet Central has a few excerpts from Mimart's performance). Louis Cahuzac's early recordings (and later ones also) show no vibrato. August Perier left many recordings (collected on the rare CD "Les Grands Maitres de la Clarinette, Volume 3," LYS 511) that show he used a rather fast vibrato from time to time, also nothing like Kell's. Bonade's recordings (for example, the clarinet solo from the Zampa Overture and the famous solo from Tosca) are as free of vibrato as Cahuzac's performances. So one can marshal evidence from famous, influencial French players and teachers that Jeanjean would probably have been familiar with to argue for or against vibrato.
Post Edited (2019-06-12 04:35)
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2019-06-12 17:20
Louis Cahuzac's early recordings (and later ones also) show no vibrato.
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I beg to differ with this. His recording of the Hindemith Concerto (with the composer conducting) exhibits plenty of vibrato, somewhat similar to that used by the OP's Jeanjean recording. Ditto for his recording of the Nielsen Concerto.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2019-06-13 00:00
Ok, subtle vibrato but not the Kell, DePeyer, Stolzman pronounced type. I hear the Cahuzac tonal variations more as changes in color and timbre rather than pitch. Incidentally, I tend to prefer Jeanjean played with subtle vibrato rather than perfectly straight, and there is no doubt that many of his French colleagues did play with some vibrato shadings. But my main point is that there was not a single united position in the culture of the Paris Conservatory as to whether to use or not use vibrato. Some players used little; some more. In the US Bonade promoted a straighter, more vibrato-free sound in his students.
Post Edited (2019-06-14 16:25)
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2019-06-13 03:32
In the US Bonade promoted a straighter, more vibrato-free sound in his students.
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For the most part, yes, although Marcellus can be heard using a subtle vibrato (some would just call it intensity) in many recordings.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-06-13 04:33
rmk54 wrote:
> For the most part, yes, although Marcellus can be heard using a
> subtle vibrato (some would just call it intensity) in many
> recordings.
So did Gigliotti, although you were much more likely to hear it in live performance than in recordings.
Karl
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2019-06-13 08:30
You know, I had always thought my training in "classical" music through college was good...but I feel like I must've missed out on a lot of important points. I was taught over and over again that any vibrato on the clarinet was bad form. (This information was just offered in normal classroom environments when discussing the proper playing of the clarinet. This information wasn't aimed at me, as I didn't use vibrato back then.)
When I attended college, we didn't have easy access to recordings or live performances by masters. We had a listening room where we could put on communal headphones and plug into either reel-to-reel tape or LPs, but there was seldom a station open to listen at. I aimlessly would buy CD's/LP's but didn't have any direction, and wasn't able to optimize those resources as a result. I'm sad that I missed so much, and now want to go hear all the things I missed.
You've all mentioned so much in this discussion that I'll be listening to a lot more classical music this summer to try to hear what you're referring to.
Thanks!! This bulletin board is a wonderful place.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-06-13 15:58
Responders (including me) may have "over sold" the vibrato thing a bit. As mentioned above, Daniel Bonade did not really use or teach vibrato and he is the father of the French/American School of clarinet playing. Consequently you don't really hear any vibrato in legitimate classical clarinet playing here in the States.
I had to hear about schools of thought about vibrato from my oboe and flute playing friends because I was not hearing it from Combs, Brody, Yeh, Wollwage (Chicago guys).
That said I recall playing a performance of Don Giovanni back while I was still in high school. The conductor was Dutch and at one point in the initial rehearsal he looked at the two of us playing clarinet (another young upstart) and asked, "can you guys play with vibrato?" The two of us beamed (as upstarts do) and proceeded to render the least "American" version of Don Giovanni you can imagine!
...............Paul Aviles
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