 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Andrez444
Date: 2015-02-01 15:24
I would be very interested in people's approach to the articulation pattern options in the fourth variation of the quintet (4th movement).
I have listened to a number of interpretations, and given there is always scope within Mozart to shape the phrasing and articulation what players think. (I have the Barenreiter edition where the semiquavers have no articulation marking.)
Additionally there is a place at the close of the adagio which follows, to adorn the fermata (written clarion A) before the final Allegro.
How common is it to do this and what would be the options?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-02-01 19:49
In the fourth movement of the Quintet, you must hear the theme all the time, throughout each variation. For example, in the first variation, the two violins, and then the viola and cello, play the theme. You're the decoration. They punch it out, while you weave a sheer web over it. They're the horses. You're the spider.
The second variation has the theme less prominent, and in the third variation the violins leave out half the notes, beneath the viola solo.
The theme returns big time in the fourth variation. The clarinet doesn't have the play the theme at the beginning. The 1st violin does. You make virtuosic decorations over it. That means that you must hold back, and the 1st violinist must punch it out.
Then the 2nd violin plays the theme while the 1st violinist decorates it for two bars, and the theme is only implied for the next two.
Then you have the theme, fragmented over several octaves, while the 1st violin decorates. You must hear the theme clearly and play it through the leaps as if it was the initial statement.
The violin articulates easily at high speed, alternating downbow and upbow. The clarinetist has a harder time, since each note requires a full tongue stroke. You do what's necessary to make it smooth. That could be double tonguing, the dreaded two-slurred-plus-two-staccato, slurred groups of four or very lightly tongued notes, just barely brushed with the tip of the tongue. It's much more important to keep the notes running smoothly than it is to tongue all of them.
The adagio section is a fifth variation. The theme is almost absent, but you must hear it clearly in your head.
The A under the fermata sign in the adagio section is already a decoration -- a nonharmonic note that resolves down to the G. The strings play only an eighth note, leaving you unaccompanied. This is the clearest sort of invitation to do a circumspect "eingnang" to keep the musical line moving. I think it's absolutely necessary to make a small decoration on the fermata -- maybe a turn and a couple of extra notes to get to the G.
And by the way, what follows is a sixth variation, with the violins playing the theme and you just decorating it. It morphs into a coda, but, as always, you have to listen for the theme and blend in whenever you don't have it.
Ken Shaw
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