Caboodles of Clarinets, Quartets, Vol. 3

Alexandre Montagney Joseph Artôt (1815-1845) was a Belgian violin virtuoso and child prodigy who at age 6 performed a full concerto and at age 13, toured Europe. He also toured North America and Cuba at age 28, one of the first violinists to do so and made a huge splash in the media. As you can see from his dates, he died very young and only wrote a handful of works and only for strings. This one comes from an unidentified work of Artot’s. It was, perhaps, the Hohmann Violin Method from which H. Voxman found this round. Voxman’s most recent biographer, Michelle Bowen, told me that this violin method was a main source of Himie’s at the time of these arrangements. I suspect that this was originally a string quartet; the musical gestures are so string-like.

I would suggest using this piece to teach side ‘B-flat’, if the players don’t already know it. This is a selection that the group will gain much by switching parts, as everyone will learn to play the different roles of melody, supporting melody, inside voice and bass line.

I adjusted the dynamics: every time the part had the melody, the other parts were dialed down or the melody up a notch. So, m. 2: mf in 2nd part; m. 19: mf in the 1st, 3rd and 4th parts; m. 22: mp in the 2nd part, mm. 24-25: mf in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th parts. I chose a medium tempo for this one, around 96 to the dotted quarter. A bit slower works very well too, so adjust as needed.

You’ll enjoy this one; it is very sweet and soothing to play. Can’t you just see some bow hunters in forest green velvet costumes trotting about the pastures of France and singing this tune?

Robert Nicolas Charles Bochsa (1789-1856) was not only a composer but also the official harpist to Napoleon and King Louis XVIII. Who knew politicians and kings had harpists? Most of Bochsa’s compositions were written for harp. He was also a forger, went bankrupt, was married to two women at the same time and ran away with another guy’s wife. He is the same Robert Bochsa who composed a piece for basset horn called Cease Your Funning. Who says history is boring? The source of this andante is possibly taken from the 20 sonatas he wrote for harp, violin, clarinet and flute.

As your quartet comes together, having prepared each of your parts well in advance of your first rehearsal, I’d suggest you listen to some harp music. Notice that the harp sound rings a long time and dies away slowly. As well, all the attacks are together (since they are performed on one harpist’s two hands). Each of the Andante quartet parts has a moving line, which makes for an interesting time for all, but the sixteenth-note parts must be like three fingers, plucking and notes ringing together, with a ‘dying away’ quality to the note endings. The only change I made in this arrangement was to add a slight ritard at the end of m. 21 (a tempo at m. 22) and at the end. This is a lovely piece that I know you will enjoy.

Bohemia is the region between Germany and Poland, now mostly comprising Czechoslovakia. The polka is the national dance of the Czech people, but also a popular dance in the US in the 1930s and ‘40s, when Professor Voxman was doing these arrangements. I’m glad that he chose this one to arrange for four clarinets, it’s a gem.

Have you ever done the polka? Having been trained by the granddaughter of a German-descent accordion-playing grandma, I can tell you that it’s a boisterous dance that takes up a lot of real estate, swinging, twirling, and hopping, peppered with lots of laughing. The rhythm is exactly that of the opening – a big step, turn and two quick steps – so feel the polka (find a Bohemian) and that will guide your tempo. I do adore the ‘Ab’ middle section, what a brilliant modulation! For you students and teachers looking for a good alternate fingering examples, here you’ll find them: left ‘C’, fork and side ‘Gbs’, side ‘Eb’; everyone gets confused, great fun!

Engelbert Humperdinck (1824-1921), the original Engelbert Humperdinck, was a German composer whose most famous work is the children’s opera from which this selection is taken. The other Engelbert Humperdinck, born in 1936 as Arnold George Dorsey, was a pop singer in the 1960s, if you are old enough to remember. I wish I could say that Arnold George (Gerry) was the composer’s grandson, but actually Gerry’s manager convinced him that taking the name Engelbert Humperdinck would get him the record deals. However, Gerry was a great singer, so who’s to say if ‘Engelbert Humperdinck’ was a better publicity grabber than ‘Gerry Dorsey’? I remember as a kid listening to his pop hits and love saying the name, but it is rather confusing for musical posterity!

Actually, it was a grandchild to whom we owe thanks for the composer’s fame. Granddaughter Dr. Eva Humperdinck researched and revived her grandfather’s works and we are indebted to her and a few of her musicological friends for reviving this opera, Hänsel und Gretel. In the prayer, Hansel and Gretel are lost in the forest and are tired. It is evening and they want to say their evening prayers before going to sleep. The words, translated are:

When at night I go to sleep, fourteen angels watch do keep, two my head are guarding, two my feet are guiding, two are on my right hand, two are on my left hand, two who warmly cover, two who o’er me hover, two to whom ’tis given, to guide my steps to heaven, sleeping softly, then it seems, heaven enters in my dreams, angels hover round me, whispering they have found me, two are sweetly singing, two are garlands bringing, when at night I go to sleep, fourteen angels watch do keep…

There are lots of you tube videos of this scene; the best I’ve found is by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, directed by Vladimir Jurowski. Check it out.

Technical considerations – take out the first breath in parts 1 – 3, the 2nd breath in part 4, and the third one in the 3rd and 4th parts; add a small lift-pause before the downbeat of 13, which is something the singers do. Expressive considerations – get to know the original of this work, the entire production preferably, but if not, this section (Act 2, Scene 4). The orchestration is absolutely luminous and the clarinet seems to be a favorite in Humperdinck’s opera, so the perfect instrument for this arrangement. We are lucky to have this one – thanks Himie. Quartet players, enjoy!

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was the second son of a cartwheel maker and a cook. Are you wondering why the careers of someone’s parents were so important in a historical biography? Well, for someone like Joseph Haydn, who was enormously talented and needed talented and experienced teachers, finding the means to get this young boy an education was incredibly challenging for a father who made cartwheels (actual wooden wheels, not the acrobatic kind) and a mother cooked for the local Count. To complicate this further, they lived far away from anything resembling a music school. Fortunately, Joseph’s dad was a part-time musician and was able to send Joseph to live with a distant cousin who was a music teacher. Even before this music training, it was clear that Joseph was blessed with a great singing voice, destined for the church choir. Soon he made the big time: St. Stephen’s choir school in Vienna, at which he was taught singing, violin, music theory and composition, language and other studies and participated in least 2 performances (masses or other religious services) a day. Haydn had a long career working for one wealthy family, the Esterházy dynasty. His job description not only included composition and performing but also managing the musicians and their uniforms (including properly powdered wigs), the instruments and the library. It is possible that he wrote the very first theatrical symphony, called the ‘Farewell’, in which the performers all ended at different times, blew out their candles (on the music stands) and left the stage, leaving just two violins on stage at the end. It was supposed to be a hint to Prince Nicolas Esterházy that it was time to leave the summer mansion and go home to Vienna.

This arrangement is taken from the “Ochsenmenuett”, Hob. IX: 27 for orchestra. A French recording (Menuet de boeuf) featuring a piano version of the menuet is performed by Francesco Tristano Schimlé and is available on iTunes. Sometimes Haydn’s works are titled, such as the ‘Surprise’, ‘Clock’, ‘Chicken’, ‘Bear’, ‘Military’, and ‘Farewell’ symphonies. Often these names are born, as are all good nicknames, from someone’s playful comment. Many times these particular descriptive titles were chosen by an enterprising publisher who thought a work might sell better if it had a catchy title (marketing old school style). This one, Oxen Menuet, is suspected to be a comment on Haydn’s personal appearance and style of dancing. The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music tells us, this minuet was either “taken from or gave rise to the following stage works: (presumed lost) vaudeville Le menuet du boeuf, ou Une leçon d’Haydn, 1805, by J.B. Constantin; (presumed lost) vaudeville Haydn, ou Le menuet de boeuf, 1812, by J.J. Gabriel and A.J.M. Wafflard; pasticcio Die Ochsenmenuett, 1823.” Later in New Grove’s we learn that a Herr I. von Seyfried arranged the 1823 pasticcio. The pasticcio is a dramatic musical that is a stitched together version, a kind of musical revue, of other works by the same composer. So to summarize, this work started as a comic stage production, a parody of sorts, in 1805 in France, as (translated) ‘The Oxen Minuet’ or ‘A Lesson of Haydn’s’. Another French parody on the same topic followed in 1812. In 1823 The Oxen Minuet production returns, now in Vienna, in German, Die Ochsenmenuett, and apparently using much of the same jokes and tunes. This is all listed as doubtfully composed by Haydn, meaning any one or several of these funny guys could have written this minuet as a spoof of Haydn, not just stealing it from him – not exactly auspicious origins, but a nice little tune in any case.

There is certainly a cartoonish style happening here – plenty of accented downbeats and dizzy figures, perhaps a musical description of a clumsy or tipsy dancer. Once you’ve got a handle on the technique, try to make up a story of how Haydn may have been dancing to this work. Put in some other characters (better dancers for contrast) and a glittery ballroom, powdered wigs, wherever your imagination takes you. We often do this kind of imagination in Chamber Music Connection (Columbus, Ohio’s premiere chamber music program for youth through adult amateurs). There comes a time in most every CMC semester or festival that the ensemble comes out with the story about their music. These stories are often funny and very detailed with everyone adding elements. The beauty of instrumental music is that without words you can make up your own story. Give it a try and send me the synopsis!

Felix Mendelssohn (1808-1847) and his sister Fanny (1805-1847) were both incredibly talented and well-schooled musicians. At age nine Felix was performing the Dussek Military Concerto from memory and Fanny, age 13, the entire 24 Preludes from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Lest you think that genius and child prodigy–ness require no work, remember that Frau Mendelssohn had her brood up and practicing every day at 5 a.m. The children had lessons on piano, violin, organ, and music theory, sang in the choir and attended orchestra rehearsals. Of course there were academic lessons: in history, geography, arithmetic (that’s math, for you youngsters), French and Greek. By the mid-1820s, Fanny’s musical education was curtailed. She was allowed to perform only entertaining, ornamental works, she was denied any career option and all her compositional energies were restricted to songs and piano miniatures. By contrast, Felix was encouraged to go as far as he was able. For his 12th birthday, his father arranged for Felix’s first opera to be performed in their home, with actual professional musicians, an orchestra, acting, staging, and costumes – the works. Felix turned out to be one of the most successful German composers of his time, in the early Romantic era. His Overture to a Midsummer’s Night Dream was written when Felix was just age 17 and is still considered a sparkling masterpiece of youthful exuberance and talent. Mendelssohn’s travels inspired his great orchestral works, the “Italian” and “Scottish” symphonies and the Hebrides Overture. His choral works and chamber music are also highly regarded. However, for all the advantages Felix had that Fanny did not, they remained true loving siblings. At the end of his short life, Felix was in fact so distraught by the death of his sister Fanny, that his grief was thought to have contributed to his own death four months later.

This work’s source has yet to be identified. I suspect that it is only the beginning section of a larger piece and may be part of a series of equales, the third of which, Equale No. 3, has been published for four trombones. We do know that the term “equale” is a title applied to works for four parts, usually trombones, of roughly equal complexity and typically written for a funeral. Beethoven wrote three of them, cataloged as WoO (without opus) 30, in 1812. One, a four low-voice version, was performed at his funeral.

Performing this work requires some fairly precise playing. The note lengths and rhythms, the balance, the close harmonies – these are the stuff of “one-mind” performances. To get there, you will be playing with lots of repetition, slow practicing, with a good portion of recording and listening to yourselves. Here’s what to listen for, ask yourself – are my notes flatter/sharper than the rest of the ensemble? Is it rhythmically jiving with the other players? Are our group dynamics/accents/sforzando/dolce style/crescendos/decrescendos of one mind? Easy for me to say, most of the time I do have one mind.

You might have noticed that I took out the repeat. Certainly do what is required for your event, but if this was to be used as I see it to be suited perfectly, it would be as the introductory piece for a recital or a joyous occasion and the repeat would be superfluous.

Felix Mendelssohn (1808-1847) and his sister Fanny (1805-1847) were both incredibly talented and well-schooled musicians. At age nine Felix was performing the Dussek Military Concerto from memory and Fanny, age 13, the entire 24 Preludes from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Lest you think that genius and child prodigy–ness require no work, remember that Frau Mendelssohn had her brood up and practicing every day at 5 a.m. The children had lessons on piano, violin, organ, and music theory, sang in the choir and attended orchestra rehearsals. Of course there were academic lessons: in history, geography, arithmetic (that’s math, for you youngsters), French and Greek. By the mid-1820s, Fanny’s musical education was curtailed. She was allowed to perform only entertaining, ornamental works, she was denied any career option and all her compositional energies were restricted to songs and piano miniatures. By contrast, Felix was encouraged to go as far as he was able. For his 12th birthday, his father arranged for Felix’s first opera to be performed in their home, with actual professional musicians, an orchestra, acting, staging, and costumes – the works. Felix turned out to be one of the most successful German composers of his time, in the early Romantic era. His Overture to a Midsummer’s Night Dream was written when Felix was just age 17 and is still considered a sparkling masterpiece of youthful exuberance and talent. Mendelssohn’s travels inspired his great orchestral works, the “Italian” and “Scottish” symphonies and the Hebrides Overture. His choral works and chamber music are also highly regarded. However, for all the advantages Felix had that Fanny did not, they remained true loving siblings. At the end of his short life, Felix was in fact so distraught by the death of his sister Fanny, that his grief was thought to have contributed to his own death four months later.

This publication is an arrangement of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 12, movement two. There are many recordings of the original instrumentation including those by the Emerson, Gabrielli, Julliard, Bartok, and LaSalle String Quartets. String players can smoke us in terms of tempo, so don’t worry that we perform the più mosso slower than they might. It must sound effortless, even if that means performing it slower. Initially, I chose 92 and 108 respectively for the allegretto and più mosso but backed it down to 88 and 104, as it just felt too frantic. The mood of the allegretto seem to have of a ‘sneaking’ nature, as if the music is tiptoeing toward some frightful place. Contrastingly, the più mosso is bright and exciting, although much of it is played very quietly. Please note that the allegretto tempo returns at m. 13 after E. This is not indicated in the score. Typically there is a rallentando leading to the slower tempo of the allegretto. Note that there is a wrong note in the 3rd clarinet part, seven bars before circle B. The written ‘f-sharp’ should be an ‘f-natural’. Here’s the original score.