The video (brief introduction and disclaimer, followed by perhaps 15 minutes of music). File size is 120 MB, sized for a mobile screen with resolution of 480 lines.
EDIT, 8/29/23: The video has been removed and replaced with an MP3 of only the audio. Tempo was very slow, though I ultimately made it through the entire Rondo. Played on my A clarinet. File size is about 23.3 MB.
Baby steps, baby! Last year I played portions of the first movement of the First Violin Sonata by Franz Josef Haydn, as transcribed for clarinet. I managed to get through about the first third of the movement (about 5 minutes of video), but that was my limit. As usual, the combination of COPD and fumble-itis caused me to cut the performance short.
Got a little more ambitious this year. The plan had been to record both movements of the Haydn sonata in their entirety (about 13 minutes) and the finale (“Rondo”) from Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet in A Major (about 11.5 minutes when played at 3/4 speed.) This would have added up to about 24 minutes or so of video.
The best-laid plans of mousies and men gang aft a’glay. I wore myself out on the Mozart, playing at just barely 2/3 speed. I chose to play it on my A clarinet, as Mozart’s preferred soloist would have done back in the day. The result was about 37 minutes of raw video with many, many rough spots that had to be excised in Adobe Premiere into a single performance of perhaps 12 to 13 minutes. That was enough; I didn’t have the endurance to tackle Herr Haydn. So, I decided that would have to suffice for our virtual 2022 recital.
My appraisal (which I hope is objective) of my performance:
- I used too much body English. That is to say, I was using my shoulders to start phrases (never a good thing). Energy spent in unnecessary movement is energy not available for the music.
- Dynamics? Dynamics? We don’t need no stinkin’ dynamics. What’s wrong with good old fortissimo!
- Evenness of runs and arpeggios: weak.
- Intonation: generally, not too bad. I’m in tune with the snippets of orchestral accompaniment interspersed here and there.
- Staccato: I’ve done much better in my lessons. A lot of this has to do with breath support that fails me when I try to string together multiple phrases while keeping pace with the metronome. I do better with my staccato when I need only play a brief phrase, then pause for breath.
- Tone quality: pretty darned good in the Chalumeau register, less so in the notes above the infamous break (middle-line B natural). As I got tired, I lost support of the throat tones, which became fuzzy. Still, as noted by Groucho E. Moji, I did nail my one and only high G (after at least three tries that had to be cut in software).
- Stage fright? Not really. However, I definitely feel the stress of keeping pace with the metronome in my headphones and my tempo wanders around the desired beats per minute as my fingers get more and more awkward.
On balance, this is not what I had hoped to be able to achieve, but I know what I need to work on. I’m not done with Wolfgang, yet. He’s not gonna get off that easy!
Joseph Ervin Jr: Synthesizer Fan 