 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Keil
Date: 2002-08-29 02:27
I will be performing this piece in the coming months and i need background information on the piece and composer. I will be exhausting ever possible spare time to research this between practice sessions, lessons, ensembles, and my million other classes. I figured this would be a great place to start as an informative resource. You all are so knowledgable. Thank you in advance... btw, i pryed open my humidor doing little damage to it. Thank you all for that advice.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2002-08-29 03:02
Yes, well - we could all open up our lexicons/Groves' Dictionaries too, if we weren't so busy too ... besides, isn't researching background information on a piece your studying part of the normal learning process, therefore, if you get "us" to do it for you, what have you learned apart from "passing the buck".
just a thought - if you get really stuck, I'll gladly help however
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-29 05:43
Keil...diz is 100% correct as to the fact that learning about the piece goes hand in hand with the technical aspects of the work. If one is to spend weeks/months preparing a piece of music, then an hours worth of textbook study is not optional, but required. Only by way of a thorough understanding of the composer and the factors that influenced his style can one fully appreciate a specific work on its own merits. Think of it like a meal without dessert - satisfying but not quite complete.
Here are a few brief facts about the Saint-Saëns Sonate:
It was composed in 1921, eight months before Saint-Saëns' died. Towards the very end of his life he decided to compose pieces for instruments he felt were "badly negleced" (his words). Hence the sonatas for clarinet, bassoon and oboe.
The work was dedicated to Auguste Périer, professor of clarinet at the Paris Conservatory.
Two important points which you may wish to further investigate:
1. Why the deeply restrained and introspective 3rd movement?
2. Why (being that Saint-Saëns himself was a highly gifted pianist) is the piano accompaniement to the sonata unusually simple?
If you do come to any conclusions about the above questions, please post your opinion. I would be interested in your thoughts...GBK
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-29 05:48
typo in the second paragraph: it should read "badly neglected" ...GBK (who neglected to put a "t" in "neglected")
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Irwin
Date: 2002-08-29 12:08
On the topic of this sonata: I'm playing it now for the first time. I remarked to my teacher that Saint Saens must have been a clarinet player because there are so many clarinet friendly fingerings (one example of many - several instances of 12 intervals between 2 notes that require nothing more than pressing the register key). My teacher said no, that it was just coincidence. Does anyone disagree with my teacher?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken
Date: 2002-08-29 18:59
Irwin wrote: (one example of many - several instances of 12 intervals between 2 notes that require nothing more than pressing the register key). My teacher said no, that it was just coincidence.
--You’re obviously referring to the 1/8th-1/4 note figures in the 2nd mvt. 17-18 bars after square 1, recap 6 measures before the end of the mvt. from middle C to low F back to middle C. I would concur the fingerings are coincidental to the Boehm system design. Although, I'd add there's no link between the fingering/register jumps when played in any key signature. If you play the same figure in 1/2 steps ascending a full octave, the pattern is essentially the same. The standard/fundamental fingerings only begin to alter going into the 3rd octave (high C# throat F#).
Pure conjecture on my part and a interesting discussion in itself. As Saint-Saens was a pianist and unless he's on record specifically stating so it's logical to "assume" he might have wrote the solo in a key best suited for the piano player, the Bb clarinet keys incidental to the work (if he gave it any consideration at all). Why he selected certain key signatures is debatable (Ken Shaw help us out if you know why). He might have selected Eb, Ab, and Db concert to establish a particular mood/setting, possibly in common keys (for both instruments) so the piece would be more playable/assesible to the "clarinet" masses. Maybe, by request of the soloist he wrote it for or even what side of the bed he got up on. Regardless, it's wonderful and welcomed standard clarinet literature, both to perform and listen to. I for one am grateful to the master he thought enough of the instrument to write a Sonate! v/r KEN
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: susannah
Date: 2002-08-29 23:01
Irwin: "there are so many clarinet friendly fingerings (one example of many - several instances of 12 intervals between 2 notes that require nothing more than pressing the register key). "
Well I kinda agree with you in this movement, but in general i'd say that intervals of a 12th (ie. just pressing the register key) are one of the hardest to do fast. its difficult to get both sounding even and speaking cleanly without tonguing.
Oh, and Saint-Saens was definately an organist/pianist, not a clarinettist. However, it is quite possible that he consulted with a clarinettist about the music and may have changed some things accordingly (this is just a possibility!)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Keil
Date: 2002-08-29 23:55
I think what's also amazing about this piece is it's intense retrospection found in the 4th and final movement. How he undisputably brings back the opening theme from mvt. 1. Maybe this piece was, in fact, truly telling of his impending death.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken
Date: 2002-08-30 00:01
Susannah wrote: its difficult to get both sounding even and speaking cleanly without tonguing.
--the register jump is notated as "slurred" in the part, not tongued.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: susannah
Date: 2002-08-30 01:38
i wrote: "its difficult to get both sounding even and speaking cleanly without tonguing. "
Ken:--"the register jump is notated as "slurred" in the part, not tongued."
eerr...Exactly! all i'm saying is that its not all that easy to do well!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: E. Thomas
Date: 2002-08-30 02:28
Ken: I have checked both the Durand and the Chester editions of the 2nd Mvmt. of the Saint-Saaens. I presume the references are to the 12ths in that movement Both of these editions show the 3rd space "C" and the low "F" as articulated, not slurred. Perhaps your edition is different. If so, what edition is it?
I'm sure that Saint-Saens had access to many fine clarinetists and knew quite well how to write for the instrument. Just take a look at the "Tarantelle", Opus 6, {as but one example of so many) to see how well he wrote for woodwinds.
This is a great work, deserving of many performances. Thanks to all for the submissions on this great bulletin board, and hooray for Charette for giving it to all of us.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2002-08-30 02:58
I do not think we should be reading too much into Saint-Saëns' use of "finger friendly" passages in this great work.
The appearance of 12th interval skips, and for that matter the abundant number of examples where a 1/1 Bb fingering facilitates a specific passage is purely coincidental.
For every "finger friendly" passage which one can find, it can be off set by a number of finger "unfriendly" examples.
Saint-Saëns may have very well had consultations with Auguste Périer, but surely already posessed an innate sense of what would bring out the beauty of the clarinet.
Fingering patterns were discerned by clarinetists after the work was written. If Saint-Saëns was really concerned about fingerings, how does one explain the finger "slide" which is needed in the Second movement, in the 8th (and 6th) measure before #2? ...GBK
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Dow
Date: 2002-08-30 03:18
I'd agree with GBK, especially I would note the passages that go through the throat register as being areas of the clarinet in this music where it's evident the composer is a piano player.
The slow music is not my favorite part of the piece, however i could not write one better!
I have played the symphonies of Saint Saens and found patterns that are notoriously awkward and tricky. I would also say most of all his music fits all instruments quite well--- and is fairly playable...unlike some of the Maxwell Davies stuff I've done recently>
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken
Date: 2002-08-30 04:16
E. Thomas wrote: Ken: I have checked both the Durand and the Chester editions of the 2nd Mvt. of the Saint-Saens. I presume the references are to the 12ths in that movement. Both of these editions show the 3rd space "C" and the low "F" as articulated, not slurred.
--I too have a Durand S.A. (1985 purchased edition) and the middle C on my part is tongued/tied into the low F, tongued into middle C on beat 2 and tied over into the next measure on middle C into beat 1. Apparently, there's a misprint in the engraving/printed parts. When practicing/performing this piece I've always slurred this interval and thentongued the middle C. I don't have any recordings of the piece to reference either. Maybe, I've been playing it wrong.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Irwin
Date: 2002-08-30 12:28
GBK,
You're right about the finger slide. I just started playing the piece a week ago, and don't need to finger slide since my Opus has an auxiliary E flat key. But I how didn't understand how that combination of notes could be played without the auxiliary key and my teacher showed me the finger slide which I'd never seen before. He also pointed out that it could have been more difficult had the slide gone in the opposite direction. Live and learn!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: earl thomas
Date: 2002-08-30 15:36
Cheers! There need be very little concern regarding "finger-slide" or "gliss". The passage cited is either a finger-slide from D# down to C# with the right hand little finger, or one might investigate the noble practice of "finger-trading", ie. while playing the left-hand C#, trade to the right-hand C# to permit the left hand little finger to reach the left-hand G#. Finger-trading has been practiced on keyboard instruments for centuries and there's no reason it can't be utilized on Clarinet. There is one interval that must be "finger-traded" and that is low C# followed by low E followed by low G#. Without the extra left-hand E-flat/A-flat key, clean, consecutive playing of those three notes is next to impossible.
Ten and eleven bars before "27" contains a rather difficult fingering problem: either use the side A# or finger the A# 1/2 to rhyme with the top line F# in the same series of notes. Either solution is somewhat awkward, but I prefer the 1/2 A# utilization, having performed it using both possibliities.
Regarding the articulation situation: in the 1st Mvmt. at measure 44, the Durand edition has those notes articulated, while the Chester has some slurring to ease the problem for such fast tonguing. I've always single-tongued that passage, that is until at about age 74, when my usually comfortable rapid staccato went south. So, now I double tongue that passage. At a fast tempo that spot can be a problem to younger players, nes pas? So much for the differences in the editions' articulation printing.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken
Date: 2002-09-01 02:02
In regard to 6 and 8 meas. before square 2 in Mvt 2 the preferred fingering would probably be the "smooth" right pinkie finger slide from written clarion D# to C#. Of course, it's always a useful skill/practice negotiating "both ways" finger trading as stated. When playing in B Major it's a fundamental "switch-off" and technique working both sides of the horn in tandem when playing basic broken chords/arpeggios. v/r
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: John
Date: 2002-09-03 07:02
earl, that's what i usually do...the finger trading...just pretend in my mind that the note is cut in two and switch fingers as evenly as i can.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
