 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: JonTheReeds
Date: 2015-04-29 11:19
A nice bit from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32428022
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The older I get, the better I was
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-04-29 16:12
Of course it's Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, one of which many would say, "Gee I can play that from memory."
There are pros and cons hinted at in the article. I think on the up side that you can concentrate more on the journey as you play a piece if you know it that well. The importance of each gesture and how they relate to each other can come out when you are "ALL EARS."
However, the down side, (when pieces are more complex and interdependent in parts) would be that you can become LESS sensitive to the musical shape of things if you become paralyzed by worry (or worse, unsure memory).
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2015-04-29 16:42
And worse, not to mention, when you are performing with a conductor whose interpretation differs from your own. Performing a piece from memory could pose challenges to meshing interpretations.
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Author: richard smith
Date: 2015-04-29 17:43
ask Dimitri Metropolis, who memorized entire operas, and conducted without a score, even at rehearsals.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-04-29 19:16
richard smith wrote:
> ask Dimitri Metropolis, who memorized entire operas, and
> conducted without a score, even at rehearsals.
If a singer or instrumentalist forgets something, it can easily stop a performance. The thing about conductors, when they perform (or rehearse) from memory, is that no one in the audience and maybe even few of the musicians onstage will know if a memory lapse has happened. The music won't stop and the conductor will quickly enough regain his bearings from the cues he gets from the ongoing music. A small lapse in a conductor's memory only brings down a performance if his accuracy is crucial (usually in a passage that's metrically difficult) or if a mistake so unnerves a player that the player then makes a mistake that crashes things.
I'm not old enough to have even seen Mitropolis perform, nor have I heard tales told by his musicians of mishaps. Maybe his memory was more flawless than most. Bernstein was supposed to have had a very quick "photographic" memory that rarely failed him. But I have heard about lapses of other more recent conductors who conduct from memory, ranging from little, inconsequential miscues to near disastrous lapses. As an audience member, you'll probably never know unless things completely break down.
Karl
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2015-04-30 01:26
The Meiningen Court Orchestra under Hans von Bülow (with Richard Mühlfeld on clarinet) played the Beethoven symphonies from memory back in the 1880s.
This is still cool though...
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2015-04-30 04:42
Several years ago our community band participated in a festival in Washington DC. The combined bands played a concert under the retired director of the Air Force Band. He conducted from memory and, during rehearsal of the 1812 Overture, he made it obvious that knew every part and every measure number.
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Author: JKL
Date: 2015-05-01 14:08
Liquorice wrote:
>The Meiningen Court Orchestra under Hans von Bülow (with Richard Mühlfeld on clarinet) >played the Beethoven symphonies from memory back in the 1880s.
>This is still cool though...
Interesting. Do you have a source for that? I read the Goltz/Müller book about Mühlfeld, but I didn´t read this - perhaps I overlooked it...
JKL
Post Edited (2015-05-01 14:10)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2015-05-01 15:53
Jan Swafford "Brahms" p. 466, about Bülow with the Meiningen Orchestra:
"As a sign of their commitment and concentration, Bülow made his musicians memorize the music and play standing; some ridiculed them as the "strolling orchestra.""
I'm surprised that people are admiringly citing conductors who conduct from memory here. That's rather commonplace.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-05-01 17:03
Liquorice wrote:
> I'm surprised that people are admiringly citing conductors who
> conduct from memory here. That's rather commonplace.
For me it wasn't so much in admiration that I commented about conductors. Many conductors don't use scores because they can't see them well anyway. But the point is that, when a player forgets something, everyone hears it, so it's critical to be really accurate. When a conductor has a lapse, usually no one in the audience notices and the players play through it, so conductors who work from memory can get away with less reliable recall.
So, for me, a pianist performing a Rachmaninov or Prokofiev concerto from memory (which is also commonplace and even expected) is far more impressive than a conductor conducting without score. And, unless the conductor has all the rehearsal markings (letters, numbers and accurate tempo indications as they're printed) memorized in addition to the actual sound of the music, he can waste prodigious rehearsal time when he needs to stop the ensemble for a correction.
Karl
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Author: TomS
Date: 2015-05-01 20:07
I had clarinet lessons from a guy with a violin player as a wife. She would clap rhythms and sing note names until she memorized the music for each concert, but would still use the music for safety sake. I think her older and more experienced husband had played so much music that he practically had it all popular pieces permanently stuck in his brain.
Tom
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Author: JKL
Date: 2015-05-01 21:02
Thanks Liquorice.
Once the conductor Hans Knappertsbusch had been asked: "Why don´t you conduct from memory like Karajan?" He answered: "I am able to read music."
So do you think there is any advantage to perform concerts or conduct from memory? Are you performing BETTER from memory than with music in front of you?
(I am quite sure that it IS useful to memorize pieces, but to learn a piece and to perform are two different things)
JKL
Post Edited (2015-05-02 20:13)
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2015-05-02 01:54
JKL- that's an interesting question.
I have usually tried to play from memory when playing as a soloist. I need to work a lot more on a piece to be able to confidently perform it from memory than if I was able to just read it. But does that mean I play better without the music? I'm not sure. There is a certain feeling of freedom from not having to follow the score. Your ears can be more open and you can be more spontaneous. On the other hand, there is also an extra level of stress from not having the music in front of you, which can inhibit creativity and spontaneity.
A colleague of mine played the entire 1st oboe part from Mozart's Magic Flute from memory (after many years of playing it with the music in front of him). He said it was a radically different experience. I've tried playing for periods of time in the orchestra without looking at the music. In those moments I do feel a lot more connected to listening to the other parts, which can only be a good thing. But I tend to jump back to reading my part after a short time, because if I made mistakes because of this, it would not be accepted by my colleagues and the conductor, etc. If the whole orchestra is playing from memory, I guess there would be more tolerance for small memory lapses.
In terms of an entire orchestra playing from memory- I'm sure the visual communication is better when players aren't looking at the parts for much of the time. And I'm sure the preparation time must be quite a lot more. So in this sense, I imagine that playing from memory for an orchestra must be an advantage.
I agree with kdk about conducting from memory. I have done a tiny bit of conducting in my life. By the time I have studied an orchestral score well enough to actually conduct it, I don't really need the score any more. I once played and conducted a whole concert from memory. I found the concerto FAR more stressful to play from memory than it was to conduct the overture and symphony.
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-05-02 05:49
Yes it's very common for conductors to conduct from memory, but I'd doubt that they have memorised every single note of the score (I'm sure they have memorised a LOT of it, what I doubt is every single harmony note in less prominant parts etc)
As an example, I have often played under Eckehard Stier- performances and dress rehearsal without a score... At rehearsals he won't be staring at the score the whole time, but he'll have one on the stand in case he needs to consult it (which may happen if working on voicing/brass chords etc). Obviously SOME PIECES are "more memorised" than other...
I recall Christopher Seaman showing extensive knowledge of the voicing/pitches for Pictures at an exhibition- no sign of a score even in rehearsals, but needing to look at a score for a Mozart overture (again, just to check notes/parts, not for significant stuff)
These musicians playing whole symphonies from memory have had to memorise a lot of "less prominant" detail (I didn't want to use the word insignificant!), and this has required a lot of commitment- more than would be usually given to these works (Beethoven 6 for the 50th time becomes a little LESS routine!)
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