 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: orchestr
Date: 2020-09-27 05:04
I'm joining the ranks of people crazy enough to play Donatoni's Clair. The first movement is a blast, but I'm finding some of his markings in the 2nd movement hard to interpret. I'm hoping someone with some kind of authority (worked with Donatoni, knew any of his dedicatees, etc.) can help, or can direct me to someone who might have solid answers. This is strictly referring to No. 2, which starts on page 6.
1. How do you interpret the breath marks under a rooftop in the top line?
2. Referring to these, it says "seque." How long does that continue?
3. Two lines down, he has the same thing, but over notes instead of rests, with the instruction, "Change position: ad lib." How do you interpret that? What is changing position?
4. Starting in the 6th line, he pluts eighth rests over grace notes. What does that mean? He does the same thing on page 8, sometimes putting the rests between the notes (5th and 6th lines), sometimes putting them above (frequently in the final 5 lines of the piece).
For #1, most recordings I've heard just play them as short rests, all the same length. For #3, it seems people ignore this instruction and play them their relative lengths. For #4, I've heard some people ignore the rests, and others put little pauses, but only when they are between the notes. These may just be the performers' best guesses.
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2020-09-29 13:13
No special authority and don’t have score on me but when I played:
1. Yes I think a short pause
2. I read this as meaning more flowing than the section with pauses
3. I really don’t know - its a weird instruction. i tried to observe some difference in the pause length based on the note length
4. I think broadly, the E should have a quaver rest before it, with the the grace notes fitting in during that time. Think of the rests relating to where the big notes come. For longer passages of grace notes its worth thinking about quality of the sound (not quite full, more fleeting, a different colour)
One thing I would say (as someone who plays quite a lot of new music/works with composers) - when a composer is quite vague, it is possible that they are open to a multitude of interpretations and ultimately its not a test of how well you can communicate specific instructions. Rather, it is about communicating a bigger picture, which hopefully is more obvious than these specifics!
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