Author: cjwright
Date: 2008-01-04 23:41
True, there is some stylistic tendancies of Barret that might not be applicable to 20th century music, but what is applicable is the phrasing concepts and articulative concepts that are taught in each study. For example:
1. How do you properly come off the first slur and "bounce" the 3rd and 4th 16th notes of the 1st articulation study? (the same articulation is used in the 2nd mvt of Gounod's Petite Symphonie on the repeated notes)
2. What is the 1st Grand study teaching regarding the line of the air, and approaching the high notes with "up" inflections? (How much harder is it to play the correct inflections on Brahms' 1 mvt 2 solo?)
3. Can you technically play those trills in the 2nd Grand study as a true trill (twice) rather than a single mordent? (Try playing the trill passage on the last movement of Symphonie Fantastique!)
4. How do you change the color of each variation in the 7th Grand Study? (What about the color changes in Mozart's C minor Serenade, the Theme/Variations movement on that!)
5. Try transposing the 1st Grand study up a half step. That makes more interesting? (Hm... the Lovely C# or Db major... With lots of low C#s)
I think all of these skills are applicable to all music, from baroque to 20th century. Barret requires learning the finesse of all oboe playing, whether it being how to play proper inflections to resolving an apoggiatura correctly to even decrescendoing on some of the hardest notes (low C#). All of these transfer to 20th century music. For example:
1. How to resolve and play the correct inflections on the first notes of Hanson's Pastorale.
2. Those tough intervals in the first phrase of the Poulenc Sonata, the correct inflections, and decrescendoing to nothing on the F#
3. All sorts of articulative changes on pieces such as Berio's Sequenza
As I stated previously, I think you really need a teacher who is aware of each melody, and specifically what concepts it's teaching so that you can focus on that concept for that melody. It also has a teacher who can point out that very concept in playing usage. Why is learning how to resolve suspensions in Beethoven more important than learning it in Barret? It's the same concept, just a different setting. If you learn it in Barret, you will recognize it and apply the same knowledge to Beethoven.
Finally, I'd like to point out that in Richard Woodham's tribute to his teacher John de Lancie, he states some pretty important stuff. (Richard Woodhams is principal in the Philadelphia Orchestra, entered Curtis when he was 16, and is now the oboe instructor there.)
Quote:
"The oboe curriculum at Curtis consisted almost entirely of etudes, long tones, slow scales and arpeggios and occasionally duets."
Quote:
"We then went on to the first Barret melody where he explained how the use of the “speed of the wind” applied to musical phrasing by creating motion suggested by the underlying harmonic tension and relaxation defined by the bass line and by the melodic shape and structure of the music. In a variant of the dictum of “putting the notes on the wind,” he said I must learn to “play between the notes” to achieve a true legato and compelling musical line, and demonstrated with a slow scale where all the notes were perfectly conjoined and matching in timbre."
Quote:
"My instruction in Barret continued through all the Articulation exercises, Melodies, Sonatas, and Grand Studies. I recall many inspirational musical ideas conveyed to me through this music, which is full of many genuinely inventive and touching early romantic melodies and covers a wide range of expression. Mr. de Lancie brought out its worth to me by showing musical moods, contrasts, rubato (now almost a lost art), rhythmic variety of expression, and sensitivity to harmonic changes. He spent a great deal of time emphasizing the art of phrasing, as his teacher had and as I do, defining the relationship of the notes to one another in the music by grouping them with the use of “musical punctuation,” and within each group finding, by intensity and duration, the best way to allow the music to “speak.” This creates the possibility of an eloquent, poetic musical narrative and gives music a meaning to the receptive listener that is far deeper than the more common approaches of a declamatory style of expression, or a simply unacceptable monotone devoid of musical meaning. Mr. de Lancie frequently employed Tabuteau’s “number system” in order to point out how music must constantly move and develop, how it is built often upon progressions, and how notes should not arbitrarily stick out in a phrase simply because of the instrument’s resonance on a particular note."
Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra
Post Edited (2008-01-04 23:43)
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