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Welcome to the artissimo.gr pages of News ! |
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English Language : Classical Music : News : Summer 2002 
Sunday 25 August 2002 : Stories about Richard Wagner part two ! |
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Experiences Now I will tell you an old story of mine : Because I wanted to study an "advanced" - in terms of orchestration - composition of orchestral art and I also wanted to have a look at the melodramatic dimension of a composition, I went and bought (far-fetched action for an amateur) the score of Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods". Of course we are talking about the actual orchestral score and not any arrangement for two pianos etc., else how would I study - if supposed to do so - the art of Wagner's orchestration ? So far so good. I knew that Wagner's orchestrations are including more instruments than e.g. Beethoven's orchestral works (with which I have already dealt up to a certain degree), or, even more, Mozart's orchestrations (created in even earlier times). Nevertheless, the whole story was to become a great "fiasco" when I first saw the first page of the work's score (as you know in the first page of the score the music editor prints all orchestra instruments to take part in the specific work, whether they play in the beginning of it or not). Hold your breath so that you can listen to the instrumentation of the specific work : 3 flutes (the 3rd flute could also be converted to yet another piccolo [yes! we are talking about another case of split personality here! :-) ]), 1 piccolo, 3 oboes, 1 English horn (also possible to be converted to the 4th oboe!), 3 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (the 3rd could be converted to contra bassoon if some low notes were not available), 4 French horns, another 4 French horns which could possibly be converted to 4 Wagner tubas (2 tenor and 2 bass tubas [well! well! here ... psychoanalysis is a must case!]), 1 contrabass Wagner tuba (so, this Wagner was also musical instrument constructor, eh ! :-) ), 3 trumpets, 1 bass trumpet, 3 tenor and bass trombones (this is rather declaring a triple switching possibility ?!), 1 contrabass trombone being alternated with one of the rest 3 trombones. Naturally, we are also having the "classical" string ensemble with its 16 first and 16 second violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos and 8 contrabasses. Are we finished ? Well, no, there is still the percussion ensemble : 2 pairs of kettledrums (sounding a bit like drums), 1 triangle, 1 pair of cymbals, 1 tenor drum, 1 glockenspiel and 1 gong. Ups, sorry, I forgot about the 6 (six, sechs, "VI") harps !!! !!! ** Finally, we also need a(n) (poor as well as dead duck but also a bit of ill-fated) orchestra conductor talented and specialized in Wagner's music ! But why is the conductor so ill-fated ? Well, before he goes for the rehearsals shouldn't he have a quick (and perhaps other not so quick ones) glimpse at the orchestral score ? So what, you will ask, the problem for him is to be able to read as many staffs as possible at the same time, no way to change this ! No, not only this for sure ! For example, in the case of the violas and the tenor trombone, he must be able to read music written at the alto and the tenor clefs respectively. *** Moreover, at the contrabasses and the contra bassoons he must remember to transpose an octave lower all the time. The piccolo transposes an octave higher. The clarinet in A is transposed (****) a minor 3rd lower and the one in B flat a major 2nd lower. The bass clarinet is transposed a major 9th lower if written in treble clef and a major 2nd lower if written in bass clef. The horn in fa is transposed a fifth lower. Wagner's tenor tuba in B flat a major 9th lower if in treble clef or major 2th lower if in bass clef. Wagner's bass tuba a 12th lower if in treble clef or 5th lower if in bass clef. Lastly, trumpet in E flat is transposed a minor 3rd higher and bass trumpet in E flat is transposed a major 6th lower. Those are the minor technical problems one has to face if he wants to read the music of the specific melodrama. ** Now, here comes the question by our readers : you should have (fore)known beforehands, shouldn't you ?! Well, transposing instruments as well as use of tenor or alto clefs have naturally be used by older composers, no doubt about that, but, as the specific work is concerned, eventually, due to the great technical difficulties one has to deal with while reading the music score, he is ready to give everything up and just forget about it !! I cannot even imagine how complex a really contemporary score can be (eg. one of the 21th century that we are living now - anyway, Wagner's tubas and some other either way infrequent instruments are not used any more). Anyway, from the whole previous discussion the following moral arises : the next time your little son or/and daughter comes and tells you "Duddy" or "Mummy" and then "I want to become a conductor", then, you have every right to beat him/her - even in a daily basis - and take any other measure you find advisable - cut down on his/her pocket money by using the minister of Economics etc. as an excuse : you know what I mean :-) - so that this bloody child forgets (at a push, use a ... Herodian threat! :-) ) for ever that abnormal idea. He should rather become a musicologist so that he can then himself criticize all those conductors that cannot read one of the music scores that I am describing in the previous text :-) ! ***** ** Due to the overall dizziness, I totally forgot that this is an ... opera and there also exist the parts of the singers. Some of them are also written in alto or tenor clefs. It is beyond any doubt that they are making the job of reading the whole score even harder - let's not forget that the opera's text is in German.  *** Alto and tenor clefs are nowadays being used for both reasons of tradition and practice by several instrument players. The classical music tradition is generally kept with enough respect, as should be the case, anyway, because it has always been a steady shelter for high spirituality (that's what I want to believe). **** Transposing instruments - The bless of the players and the curse of the conductors (personal estimation :-) ). In order to make for the musician easier to play the trumpet in E flat, the instrument's part is written in C, the player - himself - performs in C as well and rather comfortably because the text is easier for him to read, but, the actual physical sound is "transposed", eg. the trumpetist is playing a C but it actually sounds E flat. At the full orchestra score, the usual practice is having all parts of transposing instruments written in the way the soloists are reading them, and this way the conductor must always "transpose" in his head, so that transposing and non-transposing instruments can be "aligned" (non-transposing instruments are written and are sounding exactly the same). Moreover, the phenomenon of transposing instruments is due to historical but also practical reasons, even if soloists could - by trying not really hard - read the music text the way is actually sounding and find the way to perform it with the same easiness, or a bit less, without, however, having all the others "un-transposing" the music text in their head (well, by expressing such kind of views I will never become especially popular in the circles of the musicians that are playing the brass instruments :-) ). ***** Of course, the whole article has been "enlarged" a bit and has gained a kind of humoristic approach to matters. Anyway, there is a certain philosophical point of view supporting that if you are struggling to reach 100 then you may reach 30 much more easily - on the contrary, if you learn just to reach 30 and then you need 70, then ... you are into trouble. Important PS - Above all, don't lose heart ! Listening to music is always much easier than reading it ! :-) |
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