PMEA District 10 Audition Prep: Brahms Second Clarinet Sonata, movement 2

Updated: Jun 27, 2022

**The following article references Brahms' Second Clarinet Sonata using the required section for the PMEA District 10 Auditions (pgs. 48-49 only) and uses the “Masterworks for Clarinet and Piano”, G. Schirmer edition of the work. This was not written as a discussion of the entire second movement of the piece. For more information on PMEA District 10 audition requirements, you can find more information here.**

If you’re a middle school or high school band student in Pennsylvania, your summer might include practicing for PMEA auditions that start next school year (if you’re not procrastinating that is…). Now, you don’t need to spend your entire summer only working and practicing. I would not recommend that. You should definitely take time for yourself considering how hard you worked last year. Enjoy your summer! However, starting a little bit at a time now will help you be less stressed later.

Keeping that in mind, let’s take a closer look at one of the audition pieces for PMEA District 10, Brahms’ Second Clarinet Sonata, movement 2, and see if we can highlight some aspects of the piece to work on and how to work on them.

Note: this article will not cover everything. It will cover what I feel is pertinent to your work for auditions right now.

Rhythms and Time

The opening tempo is marked simply “Andante con moto”, but there are a couple of different tempo changes that happen in this section. The beginning is typically performed at around 80 = eighth note. The last line of page 48 is typically performed at around 100=eighth note. This tempo is followed up until the fermata on page 49, where it goes back to around 80 (sometimes even slower). It’s hard to say what the judges will be looking for here since these tempo changes aren’t marked down in the music. I would say do what is traditionally done in performances, but consulting your band director might be the best option here.

For the opening bars, evenness is key here. Even though this piece is in 6/8, it’s actually felt in 6. I find it’s actually easier for me to feel the dotted rhythms in the beginning as “6a 1 2 3a 4 5 6a”.

My first tip here would not only be to listen to recordings of this movement, but also to sing the melody without the instrument. Then, add the instrument, but instead of playing, only finger along with a metronome going in the background. This will force you to focus on steadiness and evenness.

Something else to keep in mind is 2 measures before C:

This section can be tricky to keep even if you’re not subdividing in your head. The judges will be listening for whether or not you can keep it steady. I always like to practice singing this section with the counting (and a metronome!) just so I can work to keep it even first. Then once I have that down, I add the instrument. It's also helpful to think the counting I have written above just so you're already thinking in duple when you land on beat 6. This makes getting to a measure before C less jarring.

Phrasing

Typically, when we perform a piece like this we expect that the strong beat of a melody will be on beat 1. This doesn’t happen though. The melody starts on beat 6.

Brahms had a fascination with changing where the strong beat was in his pieces. This makes finding the time signature in many of his works hard to figure out if you’re not looking at the score. Use the slur markings as a guide to where phrases begin and end.

At the end of each of the slurred groups in the opening phrase, keep the air moving forward through the eighth note. Avoid gaps between each as playing it like this will make the melody sound too vertical. Think horizontal!

This:

Not this:

Articulations

Pay close attention to where you slur and where you articulate. Slurring over to a note that is supposed to be rearticulated is something that the judges will look out for. This can get confusing when you listen to recordings and hear a different articulation than what is written, but as a default, it’s always best to follow all written articulations. For example, in the fourth line from the bottom in measure 1, these triplets are slurred, but the eighth note is tongued.

This:

Not this:

Hand Position

For this, I am specifically referring to the last line of page 48, on beat 6 in the first full measure.

Going from A down to F# requires rolling the index finger, This means that your fingers should be curved and in a slanting position where your index finger is over the A and A-flat keys.

Here, the correct version is on the left and the incorrect version is on the right:

Once this position of the left hand is achieved, just play A to F# very slowly and in different rhythmic patterns (whole, half, quarters, eighths, etc.) to practice the rolling motion.

Other Tips:

1. Translate all of the Italian markings - It would behoove you to look up the translations to words like calando, grazioso, and sostenuto as knowing what these mean will give you tips and hints on phrasing.

2. Resonance fingerings - Throat tone notes like B-flat are used constantly in this piece. Getting a clear sound on this note is tricky because it is naturally going to be stuffy on most instruments. To help with this, you could just keep your right hand down, but my favorite is to use a resonance fingering. The one I prefer is this one:

This fingering can, and should, also be used on the A! (For band directors, Dr. Bret Pimentel has a great fingering generator on his website here: https://fingering.bretpimentel.com/) You don't have to use this resonance fingering in places where B-flat is played rather quickly (i.e. the last line on p. 48). It only should be used in the sections that go by slow enough where a clear sound to that note is needed (i.e. the first full measure of the piece).

3. Humans will be humans and that means mistakes! Yay! There is an error in your part. In 2 measures before C, beat 4 should be a sixteenth rest, not an eighth rest.

Your version is on the left, and the corrected version is on the right: