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Richards: Hello YouTube.
Welcome to the Clarinet Master Class
for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
My name's Chris Richards and I'm Joint Principal Clarinet
of the London Symphony Orchestra.
It's not really a clarinet solo.
It's a duet with the horns.
Well, a trio with the horns.
Sometimes you're playing with them.
Sometimes you're answering their phrases.
So you really need to be aware of exactly
what the horn part is.
And if you are,
that'll come across in your audition.
It'll be very clear that you've done your homework.
Also with the horns,
you need to make sure that you're producing the sort
of sound that will blend well.
The tessitura of the clarinet in this piece is very high
and it's quite easy to stick out.
But you don't want to do that.
You want to sort of elegantly be the icing on the cake
in this trio.
Another crucial thing you'll find from your score
is the cello line has solid triplets
all the way through, right through the whole trio.
So you're sort of committed to your tempi.
Maybe you can take a little time
in one or two corners
but basically it's got to be fairly strict.
So the key to this excerpt, I think,
is Beethoven's word "dolce,"
which he uses several times in the clarinet and horn parts.
And it means "sweetly."
And that's-- that's very much the key
to the character.
We don't want to stick out.
It's extraordinary writing with huge leaps and stuff.
But we have to try and keep them--
keep them within the character
of the piece as a whole.
So once you've opened your score
of the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream,
you'll see that the whole scherzo
is dominated by the sound of the flute.
And although it's a clarinet excerpt,
we really need to play in the character of the flute.
It's particularly important.
You get this sort of thing in Mendelssohn's music a lot.
Very light, mercurial, quick,
scherzos and quick movements.
So the important thing about this
although we can get bogged down
with the technical difficulties--
the fast tonguing and fast fingers--
the important thing is to get the character
of the music right.
It's very light.
It tends to be easy to play this very impressively.
But maybe in-- in a too virtuoso fashion,
too heavily.
So the first thing I would think
is to get the sound of the flute in your ears.
And they seem to be able to do this standing
on their heads.
I would also say the speed of the excerpt
is very important.
I've often heard people in auditions come in
and play it terribly fast.
It's not actually a presto.
It's just allegro vivace.
So to keep a really good tempo
that is just in control and doesn't sound frantic
is very important and will help you
with the character.
The final thing I'll say about preparing the technique
and the difficulties is that
if you think of the phrasing,
and the sound of the thing,
then a lot of these things will fall into place.
If you think of every bar being...like this,
it you will get bogged down.
But if you think of longer, four or even eight-bar phrases,
it will just help the whole thing settle
and have a good feeling about it.
So for this excerpt, I'll swap to my "A" Clarinet.
So the Alborada
from Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol
is a very exuberant piece of music.
It's a complete contrast to what we've played before,
which has been largely very intimate.
This is big, brash,
and it should sound like a lot of fun.
The key to playing this excerpt, I think,
is to get your trills really sounding dazzling.
I think it's easy to play your trills
just worrying about moving the finger as fast as you can.
And what really makes a sound very virtuosic,
is if you don't have to move your fingers so fast,
but just keep the air blowing through
the ear can really hear both notes.
And if you blow through it in that way,
I think it'll make it sound really dazzling.
The other thing about this excerpt
is sometimes we have the main part of the tune
and sometimes we don't.
And you need to sort of come in and out a bit with that.
When you haven't got the main voice,
it's still really important to phrase.
Even if you've got something really boring,
just a series of quavers.
You've got to phrase with the tune that's going on.
You've got to contribute and be a part of that.
So I think in this excerpt,
just always have in your ear what the tune is
and play even if you've just got two notes.
Just play them absolutely with conviction.
So I want to look at bar ten.
This sort of thing comes a lot in the excerpt
with a quaver and two semis.
And when you've got the trill on the quaver,
it's really important to not come out of it too late.
So you give the semiquavers lots of time
so the ear can really hear them.
And then also if you were playing it in orchestra,
you wouldn't be late on the semiquavers.
It's a good thing to show that you know that
in the audition.
Letter "A" is suddenly it's been very loud,
and lots of the orchestra drop out,
and we're left with the tune.
And Rimsky-Korsakov writes "con forza."
So I think this can be very full, very loud.
Especially as you've got a bit of competition.
We're the only instrument with the tune,
but there's horns, bassoons, and strings playing underneath.
And you've got to cut through that.
So it can be very extrovert.
Have fun with it.
So that was the Clarinet Master Class
for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
I hope you found it of some use
and I look forward to hearing your videos.