Antolini, Retta Maniera Di Scivere Per Il Clarinetto (1813)
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Francesco Antolini La Retta Maniera di Scrivere per il Clarinetto (The Right Way to Write for the Clarinet) Milan (1813) Translated by Sion M. Honea 1 Translator’s Preface Antolini’s book is an interesting precursor to what would become the standard approach to the treatment of orchestration in the form of the treatises by Georg Kastner, Traité Général d’Instrumentation (1837) and Hector Berlioz Grand Traité d’Instrumentation et d’Orchestration (1843). What makes it interesting is not that it is nearly exclusively devoted to the issues of only one instrument, which was more nearly the earlier norm, but that it represents a time when the evolution of instruments of all types was happening so rapidly and with so many innovations, even so, in regard to physical development of the clarinet Antolini is conservative, advocating the five-key instrument and viewing even the six-key one skeptically. Rather, what makes Antolini’s book particularly interesting is that it is so revealing of a liminal period in which writing for these rapidly developing instruments was still for most composers so mysterious a practice and when the demand for expanded harmonic potential was accelerating. The author does give practical information about range and particular difficulties, especially those associated with different keys for an instrument only just emerging from its diatonic forebears, and for which he finds it only natural to give parallel but separate “diatonic” and “chromatic” fingering charts. The bulk of his treatment, however, centers on the mere technique of writing for the clarinet, of how to figure out the pitch level and key for the written parts of the transposing instrument, a term to which Antolini objects; indeed, it is only this preoccupation with transposition that justifies the inclusion of a section in the appendix on the horn and trumpet. A modern student trained in intervallic thinking for these instruments cannot help but find Antolini’s clef method strangely cumbersome. It is difficult for readers today to project themselves back into a time and mindset in which transposed parts were so inexplicable and difficult to produce correctly. This may in part be due to the fact that the author uses, and so apparently assumes the same for his reader, the Guidonian hexachord syllables in order to identify the basic keys of instruments. This more “geocentric” approach to pitch, identifying and fixing it within a narrow range of key relationships, must surely have been part of the problem. Another aspect of the books seems strange as well, Antolini’s failure to relate the natural pitches producible on brass instruments to the harmonic series, strange, that is, until remembering that Antolini published in 1813 and Fourier did not identify the phenomenon until 1822! Guidonian solmization and lack of knowledge of the harmonic series go far to explain the conditions of practice in which Antolini’s contemporaries worked. A word on the process of translation is appropriate as the condition of the prose always affects the ultimate result. Antolini writes at a time still prior to the formulation of modern prose style in Italian. It is far more nearly speech-like than would be a book written today. Sentences often go on and on of nearly or actual paragraph length. The use of numerous elliptical participial and infinitival clauses is characteristic, a process that strips subordinate clauses of clear relationships. While Antolini’s prose is in general clearer than that of the norm 200 years earlier, it nonetheless still presents difficulties. Beyond the difficulty of the prose in general, it is hard to avoid drawing the conclusion that Antolini has become rather tired of his subject after he finishes with the clarinet, a weariness expressed in the increasing tenuousness of his syntax. My notes have attempted not only to address these linguistic issues but also to provide explanations of Antolini’s concepts where necessary and possible. I have also 2 compiled a glossary of terms that might prove problematic for the reader or that given insight into historical context. Antolini’s text alludes continually to his six tables of examples. Whenever the lack of these visually presents a significant difficulty I have attempted to explain. The tables are so visually complex and multifarious that I do not see how they could be recreated adequately by any current music writing program without immense labor, and probably not at all, especially the fingering charts. Their complexity and size, twice a normal page and in oblong format, would render them largely illegible as independent scans. The best expedient, then, seems to be to call to the attention of the reader the fact that the book is available for purchase from online vendors as an ebook for a very modest price. Unfortunately the OCLC WorldCat catalog does not list any holding libraries, though there is a copy in the Rare Books collection of the Sibley Music Library of The Eastman School of Music, which retrospective conversion cataloging had not yet reported at the time of this writing. 3 Contents Translator’s Preface 2 Prerace 5 § I. Preliminary Understanding of the Clarinet 8 § II. Causes that Contribute to Make the Greatest Difficulties for the Clarinet 11 § III. In which Key ought the Clarinet to be Written 13 § IV. On the Manner of Writing for the Clarinet 17 § V. Concerning the Scales of the Clarinet 19 Appendix § I. On the Basset Horn and Clarone 21 § II. Other Clarinets 21 § III. On the English Horn and Vox Humana 22 § IV. On the Various Types of Flutes 22 § V. On the Horn and Trumpet 23 Glossary 27 4 Preface [5]1 Foreseeing that the title of this my little work may at first sight raise surprise among those performing on the clarinet, or offend the sensitivity of composers of music, to whom it is especially directed, the first perhaps persuaded that I pretend either to create a new method or to censure the many that there already are, and the second as to what way I presume to make precepts for them, I see myself in [6] indispensable need of premising this disquisition to the purpose of persuading both these and those to the contrary as to how much the above title can have cause of surprise and offense for them, and in order to make manifest at the same time and as to what may be the purpose that has persuaded and animated me to compile and make public this my little labor. Therefore, in order to persuade the first, I will say that there is no doubt that there are many celebrated clarinet methods by capable French virtuosos, among whom are particularly distinguished those of the illustrious signori Lefevre, Vanderhagen and Blasius, without counting many others who remain unnamed for the sake of brevity. Moreover, whoever should want to take the trouble of examining all attentively will not be able not to conclude at once and not agree that these are uniquely designed to prepare performers rather [7] than composers and, at the most, what is discerned in them relative to composition is directed to the one who already deals with it or to the one who desires to deal with the clarinet and not to those composers who neither deal with it nor have any desire to deal with it. For persuading the second, now, I will say that they should not believe, indeed, that I intend here to speak of all indiscriminately. Everyone knows that in every skill or art whatever there are some who, possessing it to perfection, do not need the counsel of others, as on the other hand there are some of those who, possessing it to a moderate degree, have need of it. Not to the first but rather to the second is my explanation directed; and only, so that I may be able to succeed in having caused some one of them to acquire a single understanding that he did not have previously, will I be fully satisfied and content. So much, I hope will be sufficient [8] to calm the spirits of both these and those so as to cause them to change their minds of that sinister opinion that they formed in anticipation both of me and of my work. I will add further that by this advice which seems to me able to serve the second class of composers, one should not believe, indeed, that these are concerned completely with their art:2 no, but reflecting that this [art] requires of its composers two qualities intimately essential and joined between them, that is, the science of composition and the understanding of the instruments of which they want to make display in their compositions. By separating the one from the other, may they permit me to say with modesty and sincerity together, that if I recognize them as composers, they do not, then, make themselves recognized in their works as skilled or understanding of all the instruments and especially of the wind instruments. [9] In fact, there are no few of them who, though they know only the solo cembalo, write for all the other instruments as if those passages convenient for the cembalo had to be such as well for the other instruments. 1 Translator’s note: So that the reader may compare this translation with the original, the number in brackets indicates the original page numBer. 2 Translator’s note: That is, they do not make a thorough study of it because they omit the study of orchestration. 5 Understanding that it would be too long and annoying if, in addition to the not slight time that the difficult art of composition occupies, they would then have to spend quite as much again, if it were sufficient, in the perfect understanding of all the instruments that are nowadays in use in the large orchestras.