Steve Hartman

The interview with Steve Hartman was held the 8th of June 2019 in New York and has been edited by Heinrich Mätzener.

Sound quality and the essence of Music

HM: Which requirements, would you say, a clarinetist should meet with his sound quality?

SH: The essence of this, you know, it’s all about the musicality, the ears, rhythm, that’s what is really important. Ultimately, you know, a good sound all by itself, it’s completely boring!
HM: I agree.

SH: No direction, no shape in the phrasing, this is just - so what? When it’s in tune, that’s great! Nice, that’s great to play and blend with other instruments, but you have a solo, do something!

I mean the vibrato is illegal on the clarinet, right? This is internationally forbidden; Interpol comes and arrests you if you play with vibrato. However, do you know anything about baseball?

HM: A littel...

The idea of shape, of saying, of phrasing

SH: In baseball, if a pitcher throws a nice, really fast, straight fast ball, it’s going to be hit, no matter how fast it is, it has to have some movement, it has to do something. The sound has to have some movement, so it’ll have direction in terms of dynamic, or a little of this, a little of that, you know what I mean?
The only time that you play a flat line, it’s when it says “senza espressione” and then you purposely go (daa, imitates in sound), you know, play like a machine, and then you go back to normal. As far as the tone, it’s what pleases your ear and what pleases other people’s ears. Then again, you could have someone who would play a non-pleasing tone and would be very successful. As performers, as virtuosos, as whatever, they have something fantastic about their playing.
They have the gift of grabbing the audience’s attention and holding it. That’s phenomenal! Nobody can teach that! There is no way to quantify, to verbalize what they do that has that effect. You can hear the most flawless player with a beautiful sound and perfect intonation and rhythm...but somehow you are missing something.

HM: A clarinetist should have technical possibilities that enables him to move with the sound, to do something with the sound.

SH: For sure! Hopefully, you start with a basic concept of evenness, or equalizing notes, so you can play a line. The way I look at it is that the purpose of evenness, is that you “call the shots” (expression of billiard playing). If you have a series of notes and let’s say there’s no meter: it’s just 12 notes in some kind of order, then, the composer hasn’t told you what he wants you to do in terms of emphasis, unless it’s says “senza espressione”. For 12 equal notes, you decide where it goes and where it comes back from. Obviously, if there’s meter that’s a pretty good clue to start with. And the idea of saying: if you have like Stravinsky Three Pieces or something like that, he wants you to play a 2/4 bar like a 2/4 bar. a 3/8 like a 3/8. There’s a reason for it, and so the meter dictates the shape, the phrasing. Every time he writes that, he means something, because otherwise, why would he bother?

In the tradition of Robert Marcellus?

HM: I took some lessons with Robert Marcellus.