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 Schubert and the clarinet
Author: Klari 
Date:   2016-10-31 21:11

Hi everyone!

I'm doing researching on Schubert's der Hirt auf den Felsen, on how we now can play as much as Schubert wanted to have it. He never heard the piece because he died the same year he composed the pieces.

There are some questions I am thinking about, I not ask an answer of you, but I thought we could exchange some ideas about it.

Why did Schubert wrote so few works for the clarinet? And then, why did Schubert chose for the clarinet for the lied der Hirt auf der Felsen, in combination with soprano (Anna Hauptmann) and piano?

How would you play a performance of der Hirt auf der Felsen if you had to play it "as authentic as possible", without losing musicality?

Thank you :-)



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 Re: Schubert and the clarinet
Author: Liquorice 
Date:   2016-11-01 00:20

I have to disagree that Schubert wrote few works for the clarinet. In the instrumental music that he composed in his mere 31 years of life, he featured the clarinet extensively. Look at his late symphonies, his incidental music to Rosamunde, his operas Alfonso und Estrella and Fierrabras and of course his wonderful Octet. Schubert cleary adored the clarinet!

I'm completely puzzled by your last question. It seems to imply that being authentic is in some way an obstacle to playing musically??

One topic in performing Schubert, which I found enlightening, is his use of this symbol: >

He uses this symbol a LOT and it is often written quite large in his manuscripts, which makes it unclear whether he meant accent or diminuendo. In most editions, even Bärenreiter, they almost always print the symbol small, implying an accent. But in a piece like the 9th symphony, he uses the symbol so frequently that it's heard to believe he intended an accent on every note where it appears. And the size of some of them make it (at least to my eyes) visually clear that he intended diminuendo. In the octet the diminuendos sometimes line up perfectly with other events in the score, which would be totally lost if just played as a percussive accent.

I haven't seen the manuscript of Der Hirt, but I'm sure a study of it would be a great place to start to form an idea of how to play a "musically authentic" performance! :-)



Post Edited (2016-11-01 01:41)

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 Re: Schubert and the clarinet
Author: tucker 2017
Date:   2016-11-01 01:53

Has anyone ever heard Schubert's der Hirt auf den Felsen played with a bass clarinet?

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 Re: Schubert and the clarinet
Author: Ken Shaw 2017
Date:   2016-11-01 05:40

Shepherd on the Rock is playable on a 5-key clarinet, and I've heard Larry McDonald do it on one (though with the reed on the bottom).

I asked this question on the Yahoo Early Clarinet board and received a definitive answer from Al Rice: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/EarlyClarinet/conversations/messages/2229. If you have more questions, he's the great source of wisdom. The Yahoo board is relatively inactive, but Al monitors it and responds quickly to questions.

Ken Shaw

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 Re: Schubert and the clarinet
Author: dorjepismo 2017
Date:   2016-11-01 17:01

Interesting comments on the angle bracket, and good advice to look at the manuscript to see what he might have meant by them. I've studied with a German and a Swiss teacher, and both mentioned that for pieces around that time, they can often indicate an emphasis as well as a diminuendo, though not as sharp an emphasis as an accent. In the 19th century, a piece that would likely be performed by prominent soloists can't really have a single "authentic" interpretation, since spontaneous expression was such a large part of the style. Somewhat like the Weber concerti; if one plays them slavishly after the Carl Baermann editions, one is sort of missing the point. One sure way of playing it inauthentically is like a museum piece, straight, cautiously, and so as not unduly to excite the audience, but people do it that way all the time. One could do worse than to ask oneself how Fischer Dieskau would have played it if he had been a clarinetist.



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