 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-01-09 00:17
An oboist friend has asked me to be part of a reading of a trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon by the clarinetist and composer Walter Hekster, who died in 2012 and was a friend of this oboist. She (my oboe friend) doesn't seem overly sure of how to read this music and I'm in several ways baffled, having no experience in this style at all.
The piece is entirely unbarred and, as far as I can tell, ametric. Entrances Is there and vertical ensemble are apparently governed by reacting to what the other parts are doing or have just done. It is also atonal. As far as I can tell, there is no formal row involved - the notes seem to me fairly arbitrary if not actually random.
A couple of questions for anyone here who has experience with this style (or even perhaps with Hekster's music specifically):
1. Is there a convention that determines whether a chromatic markings affect anything more than the note they're applied to? Or is that the convention - a flat or sharp affects only that note?
2. I understand that the expanding beams (from 1 to 2 to 3) over a passage means, essentially, accelerando, but what does it mean when the first note's beam has a slash (attachment Hekster 1)? I have in the past read these slashes as indicating grace notes (just as a slash on a single small note does) - for instance, the Persichetti attachment. These in the Hekster trio aren't grace notes to anything, they *are* the passage.
3. How is the slashed notation in Hekster 2 different, since the durations here are constant, not accelerating or decelerating?
4. Is there a technique for learning this almost aleatoric-sounding passage work (it all looks like these excerpts - there is nothing melodic) so that it's secure without trying to read note-by-note every time I play them? It would help if I found a pattern that's repeating, but if it's there, I haven't found it yet. And I'm just not good enough to memorize almost 12 pages of this! (Well, some it is slow enough that it can be read note-by-note without much trouble, but not enough for comfort.)
That's all for now. At this point I haven't been asked about performing it, but it could happen.
Thanks for any knowledgeable input.
Karl
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-01-09 00:20
Hi, Mark
If you're there, I'm now getting the same error with the post above. It doesn't make much sense without the attachments, and again it transmitted just from my having clicked on the "Add attachments" button. I don't know what I can be doing wrong.
I'm also going to post this to Klarinet - maybe attachments will be easier in a regular email.
Thanks,
Karl
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2014-01-10 04:41
1. Is there a convention that determines whether a chromatic markings affect anything more than the note they're applied to? Or is that the convention - a flat or sharp affects only that note?
For the purposes of unbarred contemporary music, generally it only applies to that note. For sure here, as there are some notes even in the same phrase that are marked with the same accidental - so the accidental only applies to the note it is written with.
2. I understand that the expanding beams (from 1 to 2 to 3) over a passage means, essentially, accelerando, but what does it mean when the first note's beam has a slash (attachment Hekster 1)? I have in the past read these slashes as indicating grace notes (just as a slash on a single small note does) - for instance, the Persichetti attachment. These in the Hekster trio aren't grace notes to anything, they *are* the passage.
You'll see this in the Corigliano concerto and a lot of contemporary music - it means to play that passage, basically, as fast as you can. As if you were to make the whole passage a grace note, sort of. The other instrumentalists would use your cues or their ears to recognize where you are in relation to where they need to come in - obviously (for e.g. in #3) this is not something you can usually just pick up and play - it takes a lot of time to get those entrances correct. For #1 you treat them as grace notes, accelerating into the long tone but, to be clear, you would start them fast to begin with!
3. How is the slashed notation in Hekster 2 different, since the durations here are constant, not accelerating or decelerating?
See answer to the last question.
4. Is there a technique for learning this almost aleatoric-sounding passage work (it all looks like these excerpts - there is nothing melodic) so that it's secure without trying to read note-by-note every time I play them? It would help if I found a pattern that's repeating, but if it's there, I haven't found it yet. And I'm just not good enough to memorize almost 12 pages of this! (Well, some it is slow enough that it can be read note-by-note without much trouble, but not enough for comfort.)
practice, practice, practice. Get it under your fingers.
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