 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2019-09-26 23:47
There exist published chamber works by Villa-Lobos, other Brazilian composers and also Martinu. They are sometimes for C clarinet. Do you think they were really meant for the sound of the C clarinet or did the lazy publisher-Max Eschig-simply not get round to transposing the original real-note score for B-flat clarinet?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2019-09-27 01:32
What people (including me) think about this is of absolutely no interest.
Play the music to the best of your ability.
Tony
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2019-09-27 01:46
Just to be clear: you need to make an assessment both of what ‘the music’ is, and what ‘the best of your ability’ is.
Only you can do that.
Tony
Post Edited (2019-09-27 01:47)
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2019-09-27 06:36
The Villa- Lobos Fantasie Concertante for Piano, Clarinet and Bassoon is published with a C clarinet part. At rehearsal 17 in the first movement there is a written low D. Since this note is not available on a C clarinet it's probable that the part was meant to be played by a Bb or A clarinet.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2019-09-27 12:29
Elmo! Thank you! That settles the matter, doesn't it?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: ruben
Date: 2019-09-27 12:33
Tony Pay: Wonerful piece: rather long and very meaty. In my opinion, a major work for that configration (bsn, clar, pn). I seem to remember it was written shortly before Villa- Lobos died.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2019-09-27 18:25
>> That settles the matter, doesn't it? >>
It settles the matter for that particular piece. But it doesn't settle the matter for, say, Martinu's Quatre Madrigaux.
As I've said before, you can't have a JUSTIFICATION for transposing a particular part for another clarinet than the one written – unless you have the sort of internal evidence that Elmo provides here. You can DO it; but you can't JUSTIFY it.
On the other hand, in his Suite op. 29 for 3 clarinets, string trio and piano, Schoenberg allows you to play on any three high, medium and bass clarinets. That's unusual.
Tony
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Author: ruben
Date: 2019-09-27 22:52
Yes! Elmo's is physical evidence, but this isn't always available. What do youn personally, do with the Adagio of Schubert's Octet? I imagine you have often played it, and on period instruments (have you recorded it?). As for 20th century pieces, I am suspicious of the fact that exclusively C parts seem to be peculiar to the publisher Max Eschig. That's why I suspected this publisher of just not bothering to transpose the C part to B flat, just because they are slipshod. Circumstantial evidence, I must admit. It wouldn't hold up in court!
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2019-09-28 03:30
"Play the music to the best of your ability."
I think I've just understood what that could mean. It's an instruction which carries a HUGE burden of responsibility and respect.
It seems like a perfect maxim for all of our musical endeavours.
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Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2019-09-28 07:38
With respect to Ruben's original post wondering if a publisher does not get around to transposing the real-note score for a transposing instrument, in reading "Prokofiev: From Russia to the West, 1891-1935, Volume 1" there is mention of Prokofiev's adopting the practice of writing all parts in a score in C, to make it easier for the conductor. In Prokofiev's words, "transposition is shifted from the conductor to the copyist".
Elsewhere, Prokofiev expresses frustration when the copyist does not do his job, writing that he (Prokofiev) now has "to make sure that the copyist for the individual parts transposed them into the keys most familiar to the players in question".
According to what Prokofiev wrote, an example of the copyist not doing his job is when he transposed the clarinet parts of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony for Clarinet in Bb (E major) rather than Clarinet in A (F major), F major being a more familiar key.
There are other examples in Prokofiev's music where the copyist was clearly not aware of "the key most familiar to the player", and transposed the C parts in the score onto Bb clarinet by default. If we play those passages on the clarinet that makes the passages sound better, due to the passage now being in a more familiar key, in this case we are fulfilling the composer's wishes.
Simon
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2019-09-28 17:57
I had a strange experience, in a way like Elmo's discovery, playing the first performance of a piece called 'Desert Wind' by Josef Bardanashvili (Israeli/Georgian composer) a couple of years ago in Basel.
I was sent both a Bb clarinet part and a score – the Schubert Octet grouping, cl, bn, hn, string quintet, because the programme also included the Schubert. In the score, the clarinet part was clearly marked to be played in Bb, but with a note that the score itself was written in C.
There were a dozen or so multiphonics, and a reference to a book that was said to give the fingerings for these multiphonics. But both I online, and an internet friend who had a hard copy of the book, failed to identify them in the lists.
It subsequently turned out that the composer's software program had transposed not only the notes, but also the multiphonics, which were then of course impossible on the Bb clarinet.
In the end, I played from a C clarinet part, on a C clarinet, which rendered the multiphonics at least plausible. And actually, the 'ethnic' quality of the piece too was better served by the clarinet in C.
It amuses me to ask: what was the 'composer's intention' in this particular case?
Tony
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2019-10-08 00:47
Then there's Brahms who calls for C clarinet in the third movement of his fourth symphony but writes low Ebs in both clarinet parts. He uses Bb clarinets in his first and third symphonies and A clarinets in all of them. Presumably, it is not an issue of key signature because he puts clarinets in two sharps (and two flats) in all of his other symphonies.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2019-10-08 01:13
Today We have Bb/A clarinets to low Eb. Stephen Fox offers a C clarinet to low C. I don’t think Muhlfeld’s Bb/A Ottensteiners had low Eb, but do we know makers at that time weren’t experimenting (e.g. with Low Eb etc) as they do today? Obviously, such instruments, particularly less used ones like a C, would be extremely rare so unlikely to survive. Is there a general consensus as to an explanation for that low Eb?
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2019-10-08 01:59
>> Is there a general consensus as to an explanation for that low Eb? >>
No.
I was told by Charles Mackerras that there is a low F#(?) in one of Strauss's orchestral first violin parts – if not an F#, then anyway something below the instrument's range.
Challenged on this, Strauss apparently said, "Well, what do you want me to do? Write a G????"
Tony
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2019-10-08 03:43
I was told by Charles Mackerras that there is a low F#(?) in one of Strauss's orchestral first violin parts – if not an F#, then anyway something below the instrument's range.
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Several Strauss works have a low F# for the violin: Sinfonia Domestica and Salome, to name two. He also writes a low D for the E-flat clarinet in Zarathustra.
I don't think he ever meant for these notes to be played, but rather wanted to show the context of the musical line.
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