Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-05-20 21:47
IMHO, Circular breathing is a good skill to have, but if your lung capacity and abdominal strength are properly built up, it is rarely necessary...The first movement of the Strauss is the one everyone always talks about...The IDRS competition a few years ago included the Strauss..the videos are posted on their website..if you watch closely, not a single one of the finalists, including the winner, was circular breathing...if you look at the music to spot where they're taking breaths, it's in some interesting spots...would it be better if they never had to breathe? probably..does it really detract that much from the strength of their musical interpretation and performance? Apparently not much! Listening to Alex Klein's performance of the Strauss with the CSO and Barenboim, it sounds like he's probably circular breathing through a couple of stretches; he also takes the first movement at a very slow tempo relative to some others, so its even tougher to get through the extended bits...Now, if you listen to DeLancie's famous version, not only is it much more uptempo, one detects little sign of circular breathing, but he even cheats and has the clarinet play a few oboe phrases during which he recovers!! Does this detract from the beauty of his performance? Not an iota.
I read an interesting interview with Ray Still in which he discussed breathing...some interesting pointers - it's as important to exhale in spots as to inhale to free up the lungs to get fresh air - but the thing that really sticks in my memory is when he said that after an extended passage, he hyperventilates (inhales and exhales deeply several times in a row) to restore oxygen to his brain to keep his endurance and alertness up, just like Chris's divers. There are at least a couple of spots in the Strauss where you get an eight note rest to exhale and another one an eighth note later to inhale.
Post Edited (2007-05-20 21:49)
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