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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-07-09 14:06
In another thread, about vibrato, Grifffinity wrote:
>> I believe [The Abyss of the Birds] is one solo where vibrato ruins the total effect of the music -- but this is just my personal taste.>>
I agree with you -- but I would have liked you to go on to say WHY, exactly.
See, if you limit yourself to saying 'this is just my personal taste', then there is no foothold for anyone else to stand and see the view from where you're speaking. Each of us is entitled to our personal taste, sure; but given that OTHER people DIFFER amongst themselves, it makes sense for us to check out their views in detail in case we're missing something we would consider important had we thought of it. So I want people to provide the details.
Like: one of the qualities of continuous vibrato is that it makes the music to which it is applied more likely to be interpreted as 'personal'. So, suppose you want to evoke something like a sunrise -- as a clarinet piece called 'Alba' that I once heard played in a competition tried to do. Now, because dawns, lakes, countryside scenes and whatnot don't vibrate in our experience, playing the associated music with vibrato may well fail in that respect to evoke sunrise, and call attention rather to the instrumentalist and by extension too much to the perceiver of the scene AS A PERSON.
(I suppose people might do all sorts of things at dawn -- jump up and down, drink beer and hug each other perhaps -- but you're hard put to it to find the DAWN in all that.)
I once saw a respected violin teacher become exasperated with the vibrato of the student playing in his masterclass. He grabbed a picture of a landscape off the wall of the room. "Do you think this is beautiful?" he demanded of the hapless student, thrusting the picture in front of him. "Er, I suppose so," came the reply. "Well, do you think this makes it MORE beautiful?" cried the teacher, waving it up and down at vibrato speed in front of the student's face.
In the case of 'Abime' -- well, I haven't heard Cohler's version, so I'll just say why I myself wouldn't use vibrato in it -- the first and third parts of this piece represent the seeming meaninglessness of the Universe -- the Abyss of the title.
The question, 'Why?' is one that we all have to answer for ourselves in one way or another, and it falls to the clarinet in this movement to ask it; in later movements the violin and cello will provide Messiaen's own answer -- which is of course a religious one.
The second part of Abime is taken up partly by the birds, for whom of course the problem doesn't exist -- they are 'joyeux' in an innocent, unconscious pre-fall sort of way -- and partly by the person of the Angel of the Apocalypse, with his dismissive, sweeping flourishes and terrifying, penetrating F# crescendo.
So, I want in performance to separate the sad resignation, the 'nothing' of the human view of the world in the first and third sections from the violence of the Angel in the second and final sections and the false (to us) gaiety of the birds in the second section. It seems to me that the whole point of our playing in this movement is to juxtapose these three things as clearly as possible, and therefore HIGHLIGHT the nature of the problem.
Certainly continuous vibrato doesn't help me in the first section -- I want a register that is as still as possible as a baseline, to be modulated expressively both in order to take advantage of the sad, falling intervals, and in order to follow Messiaen's indicated nuances. (Loss of the bottom end of the stillness/movement continuum in performance is one of the two gravest disadvantages of continuous vibrato, as I pointed out elsewhere.)
Further, I find that 'slower timescale' changes of timbre through and between notes enable me to do this whilst keeping the 'nothing' atmosphere far more effectively than 'faster timescale', vibratolike heightenings of notes -- though of course it's possible that I might be convinced sometime in the future by hearing a masterly performance that did use such heightenings.
It's possible to have a sort of vibrato-like 'shimmer' in the fortissimo sound of the terrifying 'Angel' music, and I myself find that to be a powerful way to heighten its dramatic impact. (Compare how Messiaen adds trills for both violin and 'cello to the climactic and passionate cl/vn/vc unison melody of movement 7.)
So, make of all that what you will, noticing that none of it need apply to someone who thinks that the POINT of their playing in the piece is to impress people enough on a superficial level for them to be called a 'great player'.
Tony
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-07-10 11:41
Messiaen taught many keyboard students and he wrote notes, sometimes lengthy instructions, for a lot of his music for pipe organ and piano. Did he leave any notes for "Abyss of the Birds"?
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-07-10 12:22
Lelia Loban wrote:
>> Did [Messiaen] leave any notes for "Abyss of the Birds"?>>
"Clarinet alone. The abyss is Time with its sadness, its weariness. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs."
Tony
Post Edited (2007-07-10 12:23)
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Author: sherman
Date: 2007-07-10 13:18
Here is the complete translation of Messiaens note to La Quatour Pout La Fin duTemps:
http://clarinet.cc/archives/2004/04/messiaen_la_qua_1.html
http://clarinet.cc/archives/2004/04/messiaen_la_qua.html
Even more, there are no directions for vibrato anywhere within the notes of Messiaen. As we know, he also wrote at least two treatises on bird songs and his music is permeated with these songs. "Oiseaux Exotiques" is one of the more exciting.
He wrote extensively on "his language", and there are no directions or instructions for vibrato. We all use vibrato in some way from time to time, but never within the performance of this master of 20th Century Music.
In order to understand the Abime, one has to really know the very first movement and to really have experienced that moment we hear frequently in the middle of the night when in total silence a bird suddenly begns its solo song, followed by the others..... in the quartet.
For the clarinetist, this work is one of the most important of the last century.
Sherman Friedland
Post Edited (2007-07-10 13:23)
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Author: grifffinity
Date: 2007-07-10 16:20
Tony Pay:
Quote:
I agree with you -- but I would have liked you to go on to say WHY, exactly.
See, if you limit yourself to saying 'this is just my personal taste', then there is no foothold for anyone else to stand and see the view from where you're speaking. Each of us is entitled to our personal taste, sure; but given that OTHER people DIFFER amongst themselves, it makes sense for us to check out their views in detail in case we're missing something we would consider important had we thought of it. So I want people to provide the details.
There is a reason behind why I didn't go into great detail regarding my opinions on vibrato in the Abyss. I have limited knowledge of Messiaen's compositional style to support my statement with fact. It was solely a personal opinion I developed after working on Abyss with my teacher who does employ vibrato in her playing, but was adamant that the Abyss remain senza vibrato.
My image of the work is of a person lying at the bottom of an abyss - perhaps a crevice with a peak of sunlight at the top. I never viewed those amazing ppp < ff's as the Angel, but rather that sound of something coming towards you from the distance at a great speed. For some reason, the crop field scene from North by Northwest comes into mind when I think of those crescendos. Like the sound of a plane in the distance - I thought those crescendos represented the birds soaring from the light into the darkness.
In the performance by Cohler, I recall a noticeably wide vibrato at the end of those crescendos, which I feel takes away from their intensity. Going back to the thread on vibrato, at the top of a crescendo I find vibrato softens the intensity of clarinet tone - which is the opposite of what those crescendos represent: sheer intensity.
As for vibrato throughout the rest of the work, which as Messiaen states represents the sadness of time: perhaps it is the human lifespan and how there is never enough time. A sadness that goes beyond the wailing we are accustom to at a funeral, for example. Here it is the stillness of the deepest depression, a lack of energy. A void.
Thank you Sherman for posting those links. It was a refresher, as I hadn't read those notes in sometime!
Post Edited (2007-07-10 16:22)
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Author: sherman
Date: 2007-07-10 16:53
In performing the work again last July, I found new material for me on the movement #4: The work was written for the three players, Clarinet,Violin, and cello, as a primer for Messiaen to understand both their abilityand their ability to perform a reasonably difficult work together. In other words, it was written prior to the writing of the work as complete. In the context of the performance however it serves as both an intermission from the ambience set by the previous movements, shocking in its tonality and regularity.
I was coached by Ettiene Pasquier, though at the time I did not know he had been the cellist in the first performance.I also worked with his wife, whom I only remember as Madame Pasquier, a great and vibrant teacher. His son Regis, was a young violinist at the time, a concertizing soloist presently. I have been told that he owns the original parts to the Quatour, signed with a personal inscription by Olivier Messiaen.
Sherman Friedland
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