About QUANTZ – SONATA IN E MINOR, 4th MOVT
This lively Baroque work needs to lilt and dance along, like so much of the music that was produced in this era. It was in essence the pop music of its day, with a character that lies somewhere between folk and dance music.
However, Baroque music is more complicated to play on the modern, Boehm system flute, as much of it is written either with the recorder in mind, or low down in the range of the flute. There are very few moments in this movement where we find ourselves in the top octave of the instrument and when they do happen, they are gone very quickly!
As a result, there is quite a lot of material in the bottom octave and the trick here is not to force and to embrace the natural tendency of the flute in this octave. We should be crafting a tone that is more tender or ‘dolce’. The holes on a Baroque flute are much smaller than those on a Boehm system flute and as such contribute to an instrument that is not naturally prone to a strong sound.
We know that the first beat of the bar is the most important one, but in this time signature of 3/8, the third beat of the bar is significant in providing direction to that all important first beat. However, we don’t want to make our listeners develop sea sickness as we surge through those third beats, so it should never be dramatically obvious. More of a thought of direction or shape, rather than a massive, lurching crescendo!
Throughout the movement we need to both know where we are heading and to constantly be creating shapes. If we simply play what we see on the paper, it all becomes a very dull affair. We should be moulding phrases and sculpting hills and valleys on our way.
As the movement travels along at a comfortably fast tempo, our tongues need to be agile. To this extent, try to keep your tongue close to the point of contact on the roof of the mouth and operate it in a lively, but gentle way.
BAR 11 to 15. You also might like to try playing around with different vowel sounds after the consonant, in particular when continuous semi-quavers (16th notes) are printed. I find the following vowel pattern works well for me: Doo, Dah, Da, Do, Dah, Dah.
BAR 35. Two things to look out for in this bar. Firstly, even though the naked ear cannot truly hear this, it is important to play the E with the little finger right hand on the D# key. We want to have as much independence and strength of finger movement as possible. A good exercise to help you establish that independence could be from my book, The 28 Day Warm up Book, Fingers 3.
BAR 80 and 81. It is a good idea here to make a slight diminuendo up to the top E in each of these bars, with a small crescendo in the third beat to bring us back to the first beat of the next bar. Once again, shape is all important.
BAR 83 to end. With the trills, this is a work out for the fourth finger right hand. Try not to tense up, don’t play the trills too fast and blow through them to give them life and energy. Perhaps the best advice I can give for trills is, ‘always know where you are going, before you get there’.
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