The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Aaron
Date: 2002-11-23 04:34
Here's the situation. I'm playing the Mozart concerto in a recital this comming spring. It is of course without orchestra and being played on piano. Upon a recent listening of the concerto played with piano reduction, I began to feel useasy.
I did start thinking of some way to improve the quality of the piano reduction in a recital setting. Here is where the idea began.
Could one in fact use a string quartet(with the addition of the string bass) to play one on a part to the original string parts, along with some rendition of a piano part? In other words, one could have the string parts played from the orchestra score, with the addition of the piano as the accompaniment, instead of the alreqady existing piano reduction??
It is a crazy idea but I think I'm going to experiment with this idea in the next few months and see what I come up with.
Has anyone else ever heard of this or tried it for that matter? I'm definately interested in looking for someway to have more than the sparse and boring piano reduction to play with.
If you have any other ideas, or comments for that matter, feel free to post away!
Thanks
Aaron
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-11-23 05:48
Ah, no ...
That's David Schifrin playing the concerto with the "Mostly Mozart Orchestra", and the clarinet quintet (a totally different piece!) with Chamber Music Northwest ...
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2002-11-23 06:29
If you have a string quartet available, why not leave the pianist out of it and perform the Mozart Quintet rather than the concerto?
But you'll need an A clarinet, ideally a basset.
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Author: nzdonald
Date: 2002-11-23 12:01
i've performed the Johann Stamitz concerto as a Quintet, and while it was far from ideal (although originally this would have been played with a pretty small orchestra) and we left out the horn parts (no great loss to be honest) the bottom line was....
... it sounded heaps better than with a piano.
The Weber quintet, on the other hand, sounds pretty good played as a concerto (recorded by Sabine Meyer in this configuration).
The Mozart concert flute and horn parts might be more of a problem... i can't imagine that your string players will like reading off a piano score either- they'll want you to get the orchestral parts.
donald
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Author: Robert
Date: 2002-11-23 13:21
I played through the Mozart Concerto with a string quartet, just to sort out some bowings before I played it in a concert. Besides a few important horn and bassoon parts, it more or less works with quartet (although there are a few important double bass notes, come to think of it.)
I think your idea of doing it with strings and piano is great. In Mozart's time it was quite common to have a keyboard continuo in the orchestra, and in Vienna they often used a fortepiano as the keyboard instrument. In Anthony Pay's recording with the Academy of Ancient Music they use a fortepiano in the orchestra. Your pianist could play as a continuo instrument, and then add the missing wind parts when necessary.
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Author: Richard
Date: 2002-11-23 22:39
Aaron:
I hope your new A plays as well as your former one. A delight.
Thanks.
Richard
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Author: Aaron
Date: 2002-11-23 23:03
Thanks for the comments Robert, you've given me a little more of an idea to spark some thought.
In case it was unclear, I am doing the Mozart on A clarinet, and am just interested in looking for some other way to accompany hte solo line, other than using the sparse piano reduction.
Also I would use the actual string parts used for the orchestra, not have the players read off of a piano reduction.
Quartet with continuo(piano and possibly double bass) would be a great way to possibly achieve a more authentic performance without getting an entire orchestra involved. Possibly making a new way to have it performed. I'm not planning to start a trend, I'm at least breaking a restrictive mold and trying something different. I mean, the piece was written for chamber orchestra to begin with, so my chamber only permits a certain sized group, in this case, a string quartet and piano as a continuo instrument.
Aaron
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2002-11-24 04:57
It is fairly common amoung community choral groups to to replace orchestras with small string ensembles and use keyboard to fill in the missing parts. This is usually done to save money, though the churches sometimes used by these groups often have limited space for performers. The success of this seems to depend on the work itself, and the skill of the keyboard player. While a full orchestra is obviously better, this practice allows these groups to offer something more than piano/ organ accompianment while keeping costs reasonable.
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 2002-11-24 22:38
You know, they actually did something similar as common performance practice during the Baroque period.
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