 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2019-02-04 01:55
As a player who switched from French system to German system several years ago, I was initially not willing to use those "historical" fingerings on Oehler system clarinets, such as fork F5, fork B flat 5, and middle finger C6, as using these fingerings often make some transition not smooth: for example, one phrase at the beginning of Mozart concerto, the quick repeated B5-C6 change. Please see this performance by Jörg Widmann:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUX7FLbey3s
Of course, on German system clarinets, we can use side key or a small key to play C6 in this phrase.
However, due to the recent fed of using historical instruments, I began to use them more. One argument is that these fingers can make the music sound as close to the original as possible. Yet, they are not necessarily better.
On French system clarinets, to do this is certainly more difficult, but I also notice some players actually are emulating: for example, the same concerto played by Annelien Van Wauwe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6vjn8dOAzo
It is quite obvious that she ended many phrases with a much separated C6, which sounds like the C6 played on a German system clarinet (and this is because the middle finger C6 does not speak very easily on a German instrument).
What are your opinions here? Do you think it is worthwhile keeping these minor details as traditional as possible?
Post Edited (2019-02-04 08:49)
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2019-02-04 02:50
Only if one dresses up in period clothing, too!
B.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2019-02-04 03:44
Do you believe that the performances by Widmann and Van Wauwe sound musically convincing and professional or not? If you have a positive view of them, there is no reason not to emulate what they are doing. If on the other hand you feel that making the two notes speak more evenly as they do on a modern Boehm clarinet sounds better then that should be your choice. Listeners to music do not care what you have to do on the instrument to make the notes come out; they only care about what their ears hear. So do what sounds best to you and what you have reason to believe will sound best to them. If trying to incorporate some traditional device makes the music sound halting, and unconvincingly clumsy, then don't do it. The sound of the result is everything in music, not the mechanical means to achieve it or the history of how it was once achieved.
Post Edited (2019-02-04 07:57)
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2019-02-04 04:10
It depends upon whether you with to reproduce with historical accuracy the physical execution of the music as it would have been played at the time, with all the limitations imposed by the instrument design at that time, or to play the music as the composer originally wished it could have sounded. I'm sure that the composers did not intentionally write in the irregularities and hesitations that were imposed by the instruments of the day and would have implored their musicians to play more smoothly. Now, with modern instruments, we can.
This is not to say that playing with historically correct instruments is in any way wrong. There is immense satisfaction to be gained in playing the music on the instruments of the day.
In the end neither approach is wrong. It just depends upon what you are trying to achieve.
Tony F.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-02-04 05:48
Tony F wrote:
> It depends upon whether you with to reproduce with historical
> accuracy the physical execution of the music as it would have
> been played at the time, with all the limitations imposed by
> the instrument design at that time, or to play the music as the
> composer originally wished it could have sounded.
Why would we (or should we) assume, because historical instruments present obstacles that modern designers have learned to avoid, that the "physical execution of the music as it would have been played at the time" was of lower quality than modern players' execution on modern instruments or that the composer wished or expected his music to be played less smoothly than we hear it on modern instruments?
Today's really top-notch period instrument players don't, I don't think, put disclaimers on their performances saying that they're very sorry, the instruments they're using aren't able to produce a scale with even tone quality and tuning, but the audience is therefore having the pleasure of experiencing what the composer expected to hear.
Good players of today, as I am absolutely certain did good players of earlier periods, figure out what needs to be done to make whatever instrument they're playing sound in tune and produce a well-voiced, smooth scale. If historic instruments with older fingering systems present obstacles we no longer have to deal with, then the players who use them, past or present, just have to work harder to produce a good result.
Karl
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2019-02-04 06:25
I would never suggest that the players of yesterday were of lower quality or ability than those of today and I have no doubt that they exacted the utmost from their instruments, but even so with the instruments at their disposal, even with the most virtuosic playing, there will still be areas where the physical execution of the music is rendered with greater facility on modern instruments. If this were not so what would be the point of developing the instrument? I would even suggest that the players of yesterday were possibly better because of the skill they needed to overcome the obstacles the instruments imposed upon them.
Tony F.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-02-04 08:06
I would say, having played Oehler for 12 years, that there is no difference in the sound of the forked vs keyed versions of notes if you develop the technique. Also, like anything, it just depend on what note comes just before, or which note immediately follows, that determines the fingering you use. If you cannot execute a decent fork smoothly, that only limits your options.
The middle finger top clarion "C" is not any less responsive than the 'sliver' version, at least not on Wurlitzer. Also, if you look at images of some of the top Austrian clarinets (such as Gerold) don't even have the 'sliver' alternate for that high "C."
Some of the things that I found challenging for some time was the slide necessary from chalumeau "Eb" to "F," or the move from throat "G#" to "A" (there is NO linkage and playing the "A" with the "G#" key down is hideously sharp!). Of course I wouldn't call that historic either. It just is what it is.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2019-02-04 19:27
Weren't listener and performer attitudes on technical accuracy more forgiving in "historical" times? Interpretive liberties were normal and expected, and mistakes in execution were relatively common and secondary to the feeling that was projected. Insistence on perfect accuracy was mostly a 20th century development, perhaps having to do with the appearance of the recording industry, and likewise the composers' intentions then gained importance relative to those of the performers.
This isn't to suggest that earlier performances were careless or slipshod, but I suspect there was generally a lower quality of technical execution, and that the ears of the time generally enjoyed the music with little complaint anyway. Even if the original sound and style were approached in modern performance, no modern audience could appreciate or judge it by historical listening standards.
This is said with full respect of modern historical performances, near perfect in execution, that I have frequently and thoroughly enjoyed with my modern ears.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-02-04 20:13
Philip Caron wrote:
> Weren't listener and performer attitudes on technical accuracy
> more forgiving in "historical" times? Interpretive liberties
> were normal and expected, and mistakes in execution were
> relatively common and secondary to the feeling that was
> projected.
Is there documentation of some kind for this? Granted the clarinetists in the local town band may have had their struggles, but local musicians in our community bands and orchestras often have them, too.
Do we know anything about the technical execution or error-proneness of top-tier players of any musical age before recordings? Do we know anything about audience attitudes in any musical age before the advent of online BLOGS, Twitter and all the rest of the mass "social media"?
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2019-02-04 20:36
Use the fingerings that are either more practical in context - if it's easier to play G-Bb by using the forked fingering for Bb, then use that, just as playing A-C by keeping LH2 held down for the C instead of using the side key fingering. You can do that on Albert/simple systems and German, Austrian and Oehler systems.
Not to mention toe forked or cross fingerings do have a special tone quality that the fully vented side key fingerings have. Think of the clarinet writing in the slow movement of Beethoven's 9th and what feels and sounds better. To me anyway, the cross/forked fingerings on Oehler system give that something special that the standard fingerings on Boehm systems don't really have.
As Oehler systems have direct lineage right back to the 5 key clarinets of the Classical era (Klose-Buffet 'Boehm' systems being a complete redesign from the middle of the 1800s), most 'historical fingerings' will still work on them to some degree. They by nature work much better in the upper register than the lower register where the keyed fingerings are better tuned and vented.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-02-04 20:58
One more tiny disagreement. There seems to be a notion amongst a percentage of the population that progress is linear. That is, we are better at (insert a task here) than we were at some point in the past. I don't subsscibe to that theory. You can easily hear some old recordings where the exhibited technique is almost scary incredible to the point where one would say, "I've never heard that piece played lik that before!"
Yes, with regard to clarinet, we have more folks using techniques that were more arcane even in recent past such as double/triple tonguing, multi-phonics and circular breathing. But when it comes down to raw talent, there were phenoms then (pick an era) and there are phenoms now.
..................Paul Aviles
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2019-02-04 21:36
Hi Karl. "Do we know anything about the technical execution or error-proneness of top-tier players of any musical age before recordings? "
About pianists we certainly have many written accounts. Beethoven was one of the most highly regarded pianists of his day, but his biographers and other contemporary reviewers indicate his execution was often sloppy, yet it hardly seemed to matter given the intensity of feeling produced. While similar reports of other pianists were not universal - it wasn't always discussed - they were pretty common. I'm going by memory here, but could at need produce citations.
Still by memory, there are similar accounts of violinists, singers and orchestras. However, there are also, as Paul indicates, accounts of note-perfect performances as well. Indeed, from the early days of recording we have documents of musicians whose technical abilities stand comparisons with any since. As far as I can tell, they were well in the minority until around the 1920's, and even after that ongoing technical shortcomings of highly regarded musicians were often discussed - and, on balance, accepted.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2019-02-05 03:37
Quote:
I would never suggest that the players of yesterday were of lower quality or ability than those of today and I have no doubt that they exacted the utmost from their instruments, but even so with the instruments at their disposal, even with the most virtuosic playing, there will still be areas where the physical execution of the music is rendered with greater facility on modern instruments. If this were not so what would be the point of developing the instrument?
The shift from a 5-key instrument to an 11-key one was a development for greater facility: having a good low B-A# or a throat G# makes things easier. Aside from the key work, though, the basic instrument remained the same.
But comparing a Buffet R13 to a Lotz 5-key instrument isn't simply a matter technological advancement (as in the previous example). Indeed, a revaluation of what's important in music making is wrapped up in the "modern" clarinet. We now value things like homogeneity (of pitch and timbre), sostenuto phrasing, the ability to project over a very large string section, etc. And while a modern instrument can facilitate these things, it does so at the cost of flexibility, character, lightness of tone, and so on. So for me, a discussion about changes to musical instruments should also take note of changes to musical culture and music itself.
With regard to the OP,
While I would never play that Mozart phrase like the OP does (I find it a somewhat silly application of period-clarinet know-how), I do think about how things would work on the older instrument.
In the second tonal area of the first movement, for instance, the clarinet plays eighth note B-A#-B-A# in the low register (the phrase in the clarinet key of E minor). Unless Stadler had a key added to his clarinet, that B-A# connection would've been gnarly. Mozart, of course, must have known because he masks the clarinet's unseemliness by having the solo instrument form the dissonance of a minor second with the orchestra's accompanying eighth notes--thus drawing the ear away from the pitch and timbre of the B-A# connection.
On the modern clarinet, however, this B-A# connection is very easy. So no, I don't make it sound more difficult than it is by playing a quarter-tone fingering or changing my voicing on every other pitch. But I do play this phrase somewhat softly and mysterioso, not so much (or, at least, not only) because it's what I would've done on a Lotz instrument but because it works with the music.
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Author: Clarimellonet
Date: 2019-02-05 22:28
Hi all, jumping in here from the period clarinetist perspective:
The basic 5-key fingers were still very much in vogue even as additional keys were added, from a technical standpoint. The reason for most of the keys being added was not technical facility, though that was indeed a byproduct. The main reason for additional keys being added (I'm thinking specifically of the C#/G#, Eb/Bb, low B/F#, and Bb/F) was for intonation on otherwise "fuzzy" notes, which coincidentally begin to show up in symphonic and solo literature more frequently around that time. We still see many of the clarinetists from the 19th century relying on earlier instruments, or performing with techniques from the previous generation. Cavallini performed on a 6-key instrument throughout his career, and while we have numerous accounts of Baermann's performances on his 10-key Griesling & Schlott clarinet from Berlin, he didn't acquire such an instrument until 1809, meaning that he learned on an earlier style of clarinet. Similarly, Crusell by all accounts seems to have performed on Parisian instruments of a six-key style (I believe Baumann, but I'd have to check my notes and I'm away from my library) until he purchased his 11-key Grenser instruments at the urging of Tausch (who incidentally never paid Grenser for HIS instruments). The take way from all of this is that that early 19th century was very much a mix of old and "new" traditions of playing, as reflected in the music. Spohr and Hermstedt are obvious outliers to this rule, but for the most part, the players and the composers of the early 19th century knew the limitations of the 5-key instrument, wrote for them, and judiciously broke with tradition when possible which symbiotically pushed the instrument makers to innovation on a technical level.
Looking forward to the middle and end of the 19th century when the "French" and "German" schools are more codified, it becomes very apparent that the "traditional' manner of playing was still at least mentioned in contemporary treatises, even when confronted with the technical wizardry of the Baermann-Ottensteiner and Oehler instruments. The first edition of the Carl Baermann treatise from 1864 makes reference several times to the "GabelGriffe" fingering for low Bb and clarino F, despite the Baermann-Ottensteiner clarinets having a left hand F. Marked with a "O" in the text, Baermann is very clear that such a fingering is still possible and preferential in certain circumstances, despite not being the most obvious choice from a "modern" perspective. Indeed one has to look no farther than the Breitkopf Weber Op. 73 print edited by Carl Baermann to see that he added such markings throughout the first movement "Cadenza" indicating when a forked fingering would be preferable to a keyed fingering.
The German players of the late 19th century were very aware of the legacy from whence their "modern" instruments came and were were aware of the proper way to use forked fingerings. From a modern German clarinet school perspective, there are still certain passages where one would be apt to use a forked fingering, even with the left hand F. In the case of late 19th century original instruments, I've often found that the forked fingerings work just as well as the keyed ones, owing perhaps to the size of the tone holes and relatively large bores.
Of course all of this means nothing if one cannot pull off a musically satisfying performance. The modern French instruments are increasingly built to be homogenized in terms of color and sound, so it is becoming harder to "emulate" the five key sound on them, but that doesn't mean one cannot incorporate aspects of phrasing and 18th and 19th century rhetoric. Some of the best Mozart performances I've heard have been on modern Buffets by extremely sensitive and historically aware performers who've never touched a period clarinet. While I don't think I would play the Mozart concert the same way on my modern instruments as I would on my Lotz basset clarinet copy, I would certainly be sensitive to the phrasing and language I've tried to cultivate on the 18th century clarinets and carry that through as much as possible to the modern instrument.
~Thomas
Thomas Carroll
Historical Clarinets and Chalumeaux
http://carrollclarinet.com
lotzofgrenser@gmail.com
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2019-02-06 01:43
"my Lotz basset clarinet copy"... hmmm... which Lotz basset clarinet did you copy Thomas? ;-)
Any good musician will try to get the best out of their instrument in order to best serve the music they are playing. There are plenty of fingering possibilities, even on 5-keyed clarinets. I cannot believe that any good player in previous centuries would have used a particular fingering because it was the one in the Grifftabelle, or that it was "traditional". They would have chosen the best option available to them for the context of the musical passage.
Klose: could you be more specific about some places where Annelien Van Wauwe plays a "much separated C6"? I hear one inappropriately accentuated C6 in bar 71 of the first movement, but I would put that down to a lack of sensitivity to classical phrasing rather than some deliberately contrived attempt to sound like an 18th century instrument.
Post Edited (2019-02-06 11:23)
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2019-02-06 04:56
Liquorice: sorry, I should have posted the third movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3EHSPrkYGs
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2019-02-06 11:47
Thanks Klose. I don't hear Ms Van Wauwe playing separated C6. What I hear (eg. in bars 2, 6 and 45) is that she gives small air pulsations to the notes that fall on main beats, even if they are at the end of a phrase. Perhaps she feels that this is necessary to bring out liveliness in the music, or perhaps somebody advised her not to phrase off too much and she's overcompensating?
Having personally spent many, many hours practising to get smoother transitions between fork fingerings on period clarinets, I find the idea that somebody would deliberately try to make separations between notes in order to emulate earlier instruments quite absurd.
Post Edited (2019-02-06 12:39)
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