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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2021-05-30 16:58
I just want to comment on the translation of Deplus:
>> First piece: respect the tempo, no nuance exaggeration, rather dark sound but not hollow. If clarinettists feel bored by playing under these guidelines, they should consider that music can express boredom, after all. Calm and serenity is a better image though.>>
Is 'boredom' the right translation here? And, what does ‘nuance exaggeration’ mean?
I had to do with Guy Deplus in the auditions in 1976 for the clarinet positions at the beginning of the Ensemble Contemporain. As you perhaps know, this ensemble was initially based on the London Sinfonietta, of which I was the current principal clarinet.
We reduced the contestants to three, of which we finally chose two. The excluded player was demonstrably upset/annoyed at this. I can’t remember any names, but it seems clear that the two we passed would have been Alain Damiens and Michel Arrignon.
Deplus very kindly offered to entertain me in his Paris flat after the audition. Perhaps we drank a glass of wine, or had some coffee. In the middle of this he took a phone call. It turned out to be from the rejected clarinettist, who wanted to know why he had been rejected.
I have come to think that it’s worth avoiding answering this question. The truth is that there is very rarely one thing responsible for such a decision. You want to say, you played well – but we thought the others were better.
Anyway, I was able to overhear Guy trying to answer it with reference to the Stravinsky 3 pieces, which all the contestants had played at one point. He said a few things, and then, “Third piece, much too fast!” Of course I couldn’t hear the reply.
But with great respect to Guy Deplus, you can’t capture what’s necessary to play these pieces well either by criticising tempo selections or by telling people what ‘not to do’.
What I would now want to say about the first piece is that its flow needs to be governed by a particular way of understanding the phrase structure: namely that it’s built on patterns of twos and threes.
I think Stravinsky would have been better served by writing:
Dotted crotchet = 35; crotchet = 52; quaver = 104.
That would have called attention to the idea that the music consists of sequences of dotted crotchet and crotchet pulses. And that realisation helps the ‘tranquillo’ instruction, because trying to be tranquillo just on the level of crotchet and quaver leads to a tempo that’s too slow – as indeed is to some extent the case on my old Youtube recording referenced above.
Tony
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ruben |
2021-04-04 12:05 |
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brycon |
2021-04-05 02:29 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-05 04:56 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-05 21:21 |
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ruben |
2021-04-08 16:27 |
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brycon |
2021-04-05 05:22 |
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Andrez444 |
2021-04-05 08:38 |
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cigleris |
2021-04-05 20:05 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-04-05 20:38 |
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ruben |
2021-04-08 16:29 |
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rmk54 |
2021-04-05 21:24 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-04-05 22:04 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-05 23:13 |
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brycon |
2021-04-08 23:35 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-09 02:14 |
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brycon |
2021-04-09 02:57 |
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Andrez444 |
2021-04-09 16:05 |
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JTJC |
2021-04-09 16:34 |
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donald |
2021-04-09 18:06 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-04-10 17:39 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-10 22:04 |
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prigault |
2021-04-13 05:01 |
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Paul Aviles |
2021-04-11 22:34 |
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brycon |
2021-04-12 01:17 |
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ruben |
2021-04-12 16:47 |
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brycon |
2021-04-12 16:51 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-04-12 18:18 |
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Liquorice |
2021-04-12 22:21 |
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brycon |
2021-04-12 23:02 |
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Liquorice |
2021-04-13 00:06 |
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brycon |
2021-04-13 01:02 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-13 16:51 |
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prigault |
2021-04-13 17:16 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-13 17:25 |
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prigault |
2021-04-14 04:36 |
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donald |
2021-04-13 23:40 |
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brycon |
2021-04-14 00:04 |
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Liquorice |
2021-04-14 00:36 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-16 03:08 |
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ruben |
2021-04-16 17:43 |
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brycon |
2021-04-14 01:29 |
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Philip Caron |
2021-04-14 01:34 |
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Liquorice |
2021-04-16 10:10 |
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ruben |
2021-04-16 17:56 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-16 18:46 |
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brycon |
2021-04-16 18:43 |
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Liquorice |
2021-04-16 20:59 |
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seabreeze |
2021-04-16 21:43 |
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brycon |
2021-04-16 23:54 |
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Fuzzy |
2021-04-17 00:32 |
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brycon |
2021-04-17 01:24 |
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Fuzzy |
2021-04-17 01:37 |
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Re: Stravinsky and the clarinet |
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Tony Pay |
2021-05-30 16:58 |
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prigault |
2021-05-30 23:03 |
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ruben |
2021-05-31 17:16 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-05-31 18:09 |
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ruben |
2021-06-01 00:00 |
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prigault |
2021-06-01 01:21 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-06-01 01:52 |
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ruben |
2021-06-01 12:00 |
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Jarmo Hyvakko |
2021-06-01 12:16 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-06-01 15:07 |
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graham |
2021-06-01 23:00 |
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graham |
2021-06-01 23:02 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-06-02 00:09 |
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prigault |
2021-06-02 07:23 |
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ruben |
2021-06-02 10:37 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-06-04 14:54 |
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JTJC |
2021-06-04 15:56 |
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Philip Caron |
2021-06-04 17:21 |
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Tony Pay |
2021-06-05 20:50 |
The Clarinet BBoard
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