Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 5


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The opening of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony is for two unison clarinets accompanied by the strings. Consequently it is on many principal clarinet auditions and every second clarinet audition - where it is usually played in the final round with the principal clarinettist. If you are auditioning for second clarinet and are playing this with the first clarinettist, disregard everything I recommend for phrasing and follow the other player. If you're playing alone at an audition for either position there are some things you need to do. This passage is very well marked with dynamic changes and expressions. If you follow them all exactly, you will do well. Throughout the whole duet try to think of the expansiveness of Russia, and a barren Siberian plain. This will help you get into the proper depressed state of mind this passage calls for. Other good depressing things that could be relevant are: unrequited love, sparse landscapes, winter, or exhausted serfs marching. The opening motive is very important to be played rhythmically correctly. There is little room for rubato in this passage and the relentlessness of the rhythm is in part how the proper mood is achieved. The mf at the end of bar 6 is subito (after falling to p at the end of the Bb), as are all related places. Imagine playing the cresc. in measure 10 through the entire bar. A little rubato is allowed beginning in the pickup to the second bar before A. You may stretch the pickup a little and fall away from it. Play the last sixteenth notes a little slower. This is where all hope should drain from your expression and the passage at A be played without any hope at all - in a much harder emotional atmosphere. The sfs that follow are very big pressure accents that have long and large decays. Play with absolutely no expression on the last C-D figure. In the Allegro, the hairpins are a source of major expression - make the most of them emotionally as well as dynamically. You are the main voice in the 15th bar of G, and should play brightly and bell-like.

At letter A in the second movement, you have a counter-melody accompaniment to the horn. The big solo for you is before D. Be very expressive. Play nine notes where indicated - you may stretch the beginning if you like. It is common practice to play the last bar of the solo as an echo of the penultimate bar. The contrast has been as much as from f to pp, though no such dynamic marking exists in the score. This echo is OK, but a better idea is to make a big emotional echo with a smaller dynamic echo. This solo is also sometimes on auditions. There is another counter-melody for the clarinet at G. The movement ends with a clarinet solo that you can start as softly as you want. The last figure should be one of resignation. A beautiful waltz is the third movement with the clarinet having the theme alone before letter B. Try not to go flat in your effort to project in the low register. Be sure to play the faster figures in time, it is easy to get off. The last movement has very little that is important for the clarinet.

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