 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-05-28 04:34
I'm actually a little uneasy about asking this because I should by now have worked out an answer. Actually, I have - sort of - but I'm interested in what other experienced orchestral players end up doing.
I'm reviewing the 1st clarinet part for Mahler 4th, which I'll be playing in a few weeks. I've played it before, all three parts at various times, and I've always kind of glossed over this problem, which this time around is driving me a little nuts. There are many places where the last note of a slurred grouping has a dot (staccato) over it. In some cases, it seems plausible that it means the last note should be separated (tongued) lightly - e.g. the triplet 16ths followed by 8ths (under the slur but dotted) throughout the first movement. There are other spots, though, where it seems as if the most musical interpretation is to make the slur and clip the last note (with the dot) short, e.g. most of the places where only two notes are slurred and the second has a dot under the slur. There are a few places where two notes of the same pitch seem clearly to be tied over a barline, but there's a dot over the second note. In still other spots, the same passage may appear with a dot in one place and no dot in another the instances either identical or at least similar. Editorial sloppiness aside (which seems likely in this last type of example), it seems to me that each reading of the dots (separate or shorten) is musically graceful in some places and awkward in others.
I don't want to try to attach images of the spots - they will only be meaningful to those who know the piece and the score is available online for anyone to look at. You can pick almost any page and find examples of what I'm describing.
My question is, what do other players do about this problem? It isn't limited only to Mahler (I once had a discussion about it as a student with Gigliotti in one of the Baermann studies). But I think Mahler may be the most problematic because he *seems* inconsistent. I've always just picked one or the other meaning on a case-by-case basis unless the conductor noticed and didn't like my choice. Do other players take a more consistent approach to this marking, particularly in Mahler? Do you just do what feels right? I've never seen an authoritative scholarly edition of any of the Mahler symphonies. If any of you have access, are they clearer or more consistent in this?
Karl
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-05-28 09:53
I played the fourth symphony about three or four years ago, so I can't really remember how that marking was performed (though I think when it comes at the end of a slur grouping, I slurred into the pitch and then clipped it). I'm just commenting to point out that the slur with dots is a pretty loaded marking--it may be played as a portato; legato-tongue; slurred but separated from the following pitch; and if I remember correctly, in Mozart it shows that each note gets more or less the same weight. Music--like every other sign system--is full of ambiguity, and expression and articulation markings are often used idiosyncratically (such as the hairpins in Brahms being a rhythmic stretching rather than a cresc and decresc).
At any rate, all that rambling is to say, I interpret it case by case. As Carl Schachter once told my analysis class: "Uniformity for uniformity's sake is the mark of a simple mind."
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2016-05-28 16:51
Usually when there's a slured passage with the last not staccato it means not to hold the last note as long as you would without it. That doesn't mean to clip it just play it short. Every one has their own feelings on just how short or not it should be, just listen to the ensemble. Sometimes even great composers like Mahler does not make their intentions clear. Use common sense and listen.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-05-28 17:09
I studied for a while with a Stanley Hasty student. Hasty told him that a note slurred to one with a staccato dot should be played short and cut off shaply at the end -- TEE-UT. He invented a mark, a downward pointing arrow with only one side of the arrowhead, written like a check mark.
I await comments and corrections from Hasty students.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Chetclarinet
Date: 2016-05-28 18:33
Actually, Mr. hasty taught the syllable"tah-wut" to be used when slurs are followed by articulated notes. I had the ultimate privilege of studying with him at Eastman from 1965-1969. There is a terrific thesis which is downloadable, by Elizabeth Gunlogson, which describes his pedagogy in great detail. She interviewed Mr. Hasty extensively and also included many pedagogical comments from former students including: Larry Combs, Tom Martin, Elsa Ludwig Verdehr, Frank Kowalsky, and Michael Webster, among others. He was a stunningly great teacher and player.
Post Edited (2016-05-28 18:35)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-05-28 19:46
Well, with or without the dot on the second note of a slurred pair, there are a number of ways it can be managed, but to my mind none of them would involve tonguing the second note, or what's the slur for? And there are tied notes at #10 and #11 in the 2nd movement that can't, to my mind, possibly be tongued - Mahler had to have meant not to hold them out to full value. I even see one spot after #11 where a grace note is slurred (unsurprisingly) to the main note but there's a staccato dot above the main note. It can only mean to shorten the main note.
The ambiguous ones are the figure in the 14th bar of symphony (and following) with a 16th-note triplet slurred to staccato 8th note. I'm sure I've heard this played both ways, and I really tend, for no particular reason, to favor tonguing the 8th note. Especially since in the sixth bar of #4, the figure is extended to a slurred 16th note triplet, followed by two staccato 16th notes, where the note after the triplet (now not under the slur) is clearly to be tongued.
I know I'm nit-picking and in the larger cosmos this really isn't important. But Mahler in particular marked his music *so* heavily with detailed expressive marks in German, it's a little puzzling why he might have been cavalier about standard expression marks - in this case legato and staccato marks.
I guess in a way I'm also still arguing with Gigliotti, who wasn't doctrinaire about very much, but was adamant that day that a staccato dot on those notes at the ends of slurred figures meant to tongue them (but we were working on Baermann, not Mahler).
I'm beginning to sound like I've typed this while lying on a psychiatrist's couch. What do I owe you, doctor? 
Karl
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