Musical questions and answers thread

[Pulcinella]

Can you tell us the recording you were listening to and give us a timing for what you heard?

Naxos (Idil Biret): second movement, 2 minutes in.
I'm preparing a deep blush emoticon for the eventuality that it's something blatantly obvious, but it sounds rather like a low ondes martenot note throbbing away to me.
I don't think it's a system (listening via Sonos to a Deezer download) glitch.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm preparing a deep blush emoticon for the eventuality that it's something blatantly obvious

It's not obvious at all actually, it's a rapid but measured tremolo in unison between clarinet (in its low register) and bass clarinet (in a medium register), which is indeed quite a weird effect.

edit: mind you, listening to some more of the piece in that set there are quite a few other weird effects which are more the result of instruments playing out of tune and/or time with one another!

[Pulcinella]

It's not obvious at all actually, it's a rapid but measured tremolo in unison between clarinet (in its low register) and bass clarinet (in a medium register), which is indeed quite a weird effect.

edit: mind you, listening to some more of the piece in that set there are quite a few other weird effects which are more the result of instruments playing out of tune and/or time with one another!

Many thanks, Richard.
The set does not get a wonderful review, though it is a useful collection of all Hindemith's concertante works for piano.

[antongould]

Is Mozart K314 the same as Mozart K314a ...... ????

[Bryn]

Is Mozart K314 the same as Mozart K314a ...... ????

Can of worms or what? Oboe, flute, C or D. Different people assign different numbers.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is Mozart K314 the same as Mozart K314a ...... ????

Essentially - apart from the alterations to acommodate the different compasses of the two solo instruments, most obviously the change in key (up a tone so that the compass of the solo part "fits" the Flute better).

Mozart didn't like the sound of the flute as a solo instrument for extended periods of time (at least, not at this period in his life) and had got so fed up imagining this timbre having written his Flute Sonatas, he decided to "tweak" the Oboe Concerto in order to try and meet the terms of the commission (which, in any event, he failed to complete).

[antongould]

So are these the same or different ...... ?????


Composer Title Programme Date Start Posn Offset R3 Link Sounds Link Time Remaining
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Oboe Concerto in C major (K.285d/314a) Through the Night 2018-11-19 00:30 31 04:59:56 R3 Link Sounds Link 11 days
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Oboe Concerto in C major, K 314 Essential Classics 2018-11-19 09:00 10 01:18:28 R3 Link Sounds Link 11 days

[Bryn]

So are these the same or different ...... ?????


Composer Title Programme Date Start Posn Offset R3 Link Sounds Link Time Remaining
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Oboe Concerto in C major (K.285d/314a) Through the Night 2018-11-19 00:30 31 04:59:56 R3 Link Sounds Link 11 days
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Oboe Concerto in C major, K 314 Essential Classics 2018-11-19 09:00 10 01:18:28 R3 Link Sounds Link 11 days

Essentially the same. When Mozart arranged his earlier Oboe Concerto for the flute, he transposed it and made other small changes to suit the flute. As I suggested earlier, a can of worms. Difficult to know exactly what is being refered to in each case. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboe_Concerto_(Mozart) , but don't expect too much in terms of certainty.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It used to be the case (I think) that "K314" referred to the original Oboe Concerto, and "K314a" to the version for Flute - but looking at the ("my") most recent edition of the Köchel catalogue (as given in the Mozart225 big box) it does indeed look as if the two versions share the same designation of "K314" - and the Flute version caveated as Autorschaft nicht gesichert. It may simply be that the different recordings used in the two broadcasts used the different Köchel numberings.

[antongould]

Essentially the same. When Mozart arranged his earlier Oboe Concerto for the flute, he transposed it and made other small changes to suit the flute. As I suggested earlier, a can of worms. Difficult to know exactly what is being refered to in each case. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboe_Concerto_(Mozart) , but don't expect too much in terms of certainty.

Cheers Bryn - but given the can of worms and putting aside that R3 has played the same COMPLETE!!! Concerto twice within 5 hours how in the view of the Great and Good hereabouts should R3 display pieces on its playlist? As a standard BBC description of the piece with K or whatever number or as it appears on the record sleeve, potential warts and confusion and all …...

[french frank]

Cheers Bryn - but given the can of worms and putting aside that R3 has played the same COMPLETE!!! Concerto twice within 5 hours how in the view of the Great and Good hereabouts should R3 display pieces on its playlist? As a standard BBC description of the piece with K or whatever number or as it appears on the record sleeve, potential warts and confusion and all …...

I suspect that an underlying cause might have been the fact that the K314a version was played on TTN and was therefore a radio recording, and probably not emanating from the UK/BBC. That might explain the differing nomenclature, but also, perhaps, the lack of coordination between the producers of TTN and the R3 producers of EC. The BBC were always the people compiling the TTN playlists, but I'm not sure that they're R3 regulars.

Ne'ertheless, one would think/should be able to rely on some sort of coordination, liking leaving a bookmark in the appropriate place with the date written on it when a piece is down to be played.

[Pulcinella]

I'm trying to understand something in a book by Arnold Whittall (The music of Britten and Tippett).
Specifically, in describing the theme used in Britten's The turn of the screw, he says, about the interludes,

[A]ll of these vary a twelve-note theme — a theme presented initially as three four-note groups or tetrachords — but whose source trichord is 0,2,5.

There then follows the musical example, which (transliterated using the notation that gives everything from middle C to the next higher C a 'subscript' 4 and the next octave a 5) has as its first line (Theme), with / representing a bar line,
A4 D5 B4 E4 / C5sharp F4sharp G4sharp D5sharp/ F5 B4flat G5 C5
and as its second line (Source)
A4 B4 D5 / F5sharp E5 C5sharp / E4flat F4 A4flat / C5 B4flat G4
with 0 2 5 written in that order under each bar of the Source.

I just don't get the correlation between the sequences and the 025 designation!

Can anyone shed any light?

[Joseph K]

I'm trying to understand something in a book by Arnold Whittall (The music of Britten and Tippett).
Specifically, in describing the theme used in Britten's Ghe turn of the screw, he says, about the interludes,

[A]ll of these vary a twelve-note theme — a theme presented initially as three four-note groups or tetrachords — but whose source trichord is 0,2,5.

There then follows the musical example, which (transliterated using the notation that gives everything from middle C to the next higher C a 'subscript' 4 and the next octave a 5) has as its first line (Theme), with / representing a bar line,
A4 D5 B4 E4 / C5sharp F4sharp G4sharp D5sharp/ F5 B4flat G5 C5
and as its second line (Source)
A4 B4 D5 / F5sharp E5 C5sharp / E4flat F4 A4flat / C5 B4flat G4
with 0 2 5 written in that order under each bar of the Source.

I just don't get the correlation between the sequences and the 025 designation!

Can anyone shed any light?

A = 0, B = 2, D = 5

2 = 2 semitones i.e. a major second, 5 = 5 semitones i.e. a perfect 4th.

E flat = 0, F = 2, A flat = 5

… so I get the first and third ones. But not the second and fourth. Perhaps I should look at one of my texts on post-tonal theory...

[Pulcinella]

A = 0, B = 2, D = 5

2 = 2 semitones i.e. a major second, 5 = 5 semitones i.e. a perfect 4th.

E flat = 0, F = 2, A flat = 5

… so I get the first and third ones. But not the second and fourth. Perhaps I should look at one of my texts on post-tonal theory...

Ah! Thanks.
And surely then the second and fourth are inversions: coming down rather than going up?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

0, 2, 5 refers to the number of semitones between the notes of a chord and the chord's root - so an example here would be C, D, and F: C is the root, there are no semitones because it doesn't have an interval with itself (other than a Unison, which is 0 semitones away from itself). D is 2 semitones away from C, and F is 5 semitones away from C.

Transpose C D F down a minor third, and you get A B D;
Transpose C D F up a minor third, and you get Eb F Ab

Invert C D F, and you get C Bb G (0, 2, 5 semitones going downwards from the "root")

Transpose C Bb G up a tritone and you get F# E C#

The emboldened trichords are the ones you mention (without the octave fixing) you quote from Whittall.