 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2023-04-12 01:42
I know of three recordings of Benny Goodman playing the Copland Clarinet Concerto:
1. Radio Braodcast from 1950 conducted by Fritz Reiner
2. Columbia Strings 1963 recording conducted by Copland
3. This TV recording, also conducted by Copland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1XEYODmy0A
There are times when Goodman deviates from the published score (eg. an octave transposition in bar 371), which I can understand made it easier to play. In the live recordings he makes the occasional small fluff here and ther, which is understandable in a live performance setting. What I cannot understand is that, in all three recordings, Goodman plays written C (sounding B-flat) in bars 413 and 415. In all the Boosey publications (full score and piano score) this is clearly a written C-flat.
Surely Copland, who was so careful in his note choices as a composer, would have heard these C naturals and corrected Goodman if they were wrong?
Does anyone know where the manuscript score is kept? In my search I have only been able to find the first and subsequent Boosey editions.
The most recent Boosey edition also includes the original notes in the bars which were "too difficult for Benny Goodman", and which Copland changed for the first edition. But no mention is made of the deviation of notes in bars 413 and 415.
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Author: WoodsyBloom
Date: 2023-04-12 04:08
The final manuscript can be viewed online in Julliard's manuscript collection. The C's are not marked natural. There's another earlier manuscript in the Library of Congress.
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2023-04-12 06:09
Anyone hear the Goodman rendition of Nielsen? If not, give it a listen.
The Most Advanced Clarinet Book--
tomheimer.ampbk.com/ Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001315, Musicnotes product no. MB0000649.
Boreal Ballad for unaccompanied clarinet-Sheet Music Plus item A0.1001314.
Musicnotes product no. MNO287475
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2023-04-12 22:57
Thank you very much WoodsyBloom for those pointers. The manuscript from the Julliard collection doesn't seem to be digitalised. But I was able to study the sketches from the Library of Congress, which was extremely interesting. It is fascinating to see which sections Copland had to work through, parts that were left out or changed, and sections which were complete on first draught.
Regarding bars 413 and 415 it seems clear that Copland intended C-flat all along. The C-naturals that Goodman plays in all three recordings really stick out. I just can't believe that Copland didn't notice them. Was it just not that important to him? Or was he too polite to point out the reading mistake to Goodman? I guess we'll never know.
Andreas Ottensamer also plays some wrong notes in his Copland recording (G-sharps instead of Gs towards the end of the cadenza). Perhaps it's just a game played by top clarinetists to see if nerds like me notice if they slip in a wrong note here and there...
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Author: donald
Date: 2023-04-13 16:21
My old teacher, Ron deKant, performed the concerto with Copeland conducting a number of times, and told us that he encouraged the soloist to be imaginative and never insisted that there was any one "correct interpretation".
Of course it's ludicrous to extend this to him "allowing" actual wrong notes, but the general impression we were given was that Copeland had been happy for the performer to worry about details...
Ottensamer has recorded the Copeland? I can't think of anything worse... a pity how he's turned out as I quite liked his dad's playing (even if it verged on dull at times).
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2023-04-13 19:00
If Goodman knew he was playing contrary to the score, then Copland was in on it.
If instead Goodman was making a mistake, then Copland opted not to correct him.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2023-04-14 15:51
Liquorice,
I don't own the Copland Clarinet sheet music, so I'm having a tough time figuring out which pages from the sketches at the Library of Congress contain bars 413 and 415 - do you happen to know/remember?
Thanks,
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2023-04-14 18:00
Hi Fuzzy.
The passage in question appears on page 54 of the sketches.
The clarinet part is on the 4th last stave of the page, written in concert pitch. Copland doesn't add any accidentals in this line (it's just a sketch), but the line is doubled just one line below in the second voice. Here Copland writes sharps before the notes F and C (F sharp = our A-flat and C sharp = our E-flat). He does not write a sharp before the A, which means we have to play B natural (transposed in the printed score as C-flat).
I hope that makes sense?
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2023-04-14 21:37
Liquorice,
Thanks for the info! Makes perfect sense.
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
EDIT: Clarification - the part I find meeting your description is on the loc's image number 54, but on the sketch's page number 44[a] (in case this helps anyone else)
Interestingly: the page number markings contained in square brackets almost seem like a different hand than the page number markings contained within a circle.
Post Edited (2023-04-14 21:57)
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Author: Cdh
Date: 2023-04-15 07:14
While it's pretty clear that Goodman played a wrong note, it's worth remembering that he may not have had a printed copy until after he had learnt the piece. I don't know, but most likely he had a hand-written part... so easy for mistakes to creep in. And copyists don't always write the key signature on every line! The enharmonic transposition would have made it harder for Fritz Reiner to spot from the score.
As for Copland not correcting the mistake - his strengths and weaknesses as a conductor have been well noted. I reckon he would have been fully occupied with the changing time signatures and the orchestra at that point!
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The Clarinet Pages
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