Doublereed Archive - Posting 000069.txt from 2006/01

From: herb fawcett <herbgosia@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] re: tinny-ness of gramophones
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:11:21 -0500

Geoff,
The level of performance has risen to a level where it is almost frightening
to reflect on my own inadequacies. Bassoon students play pieces that I was
fairly well convinced were unplayable. And bassoonists continue to expand
their range into the EH notes. F? G#? Indeed! In my earlier note I neglected
to mention one of my favorites (because he is contemporary) Maurice Allard,
an absolute wizard who probably could have made lovely music on a
didgeridoo. No fagot/basson quarrel could stand up to that music making.

Tabuteau certainly was not best shown in Handel(for my taste) as his
phrasing was so rational(and predictable) in that genre. I remember his
asking a student in wind class after the student's response to the question
"why did you play that in that way?" was - "that is the way I felt it." M.
Tab asked (with heavy laid on French accent) how would you play it if you
had a bad cold and felt like sheet? That season he told a student/colleague
of mine "if music were your language, you would be mute!" A sometimes harsh
man with huge insecurities. Some of his students would vomit before lessons.

In Philadelphia I had the great fortune to spend many happy hours playing
with Al Genovese who was not only a superb talent, but who spent endless
hours studying scores so that he knew just which part of the whole his part
was. Every note he played was relevant. For me, a wonderful example.

In every practical endeavor, we have unfortunately sold our souls to
"getting" and "having". We truly need little more than Thoreau advocated,
and we insist on grasping at "who knows what?" Bigger houses, bigger cars,
more money! I fear that many of us in music do not understand what a prize
we have been given, to have the privilege to join others in the realization
of transcendent beauty bestowed on us by the genius that went before us.
Music takes me to places where the bus doesn't go.

Thanks for the note; take care of your lovely islands.
Best to you,
Herb

On 1/29/06 12:34 AM, "Geoff Pearce" <oboist2@-----.au> wrote:

> Yes thats so true about Kell, was a magic player. Now about the European
> style oboes - I guess its acquired taste, the first time I heard Tabuteau
> (on the 1st Chair Philadelphia album where he was playing the Handel G
> minor concerto), I thought Yuk!! - because it was not the sound I was
> bought up on, and the phrasing lay like large planks of wood - well that
> was to my ears at the time. Later on we had some influential oboists from
> the US working in my country (NZ) largely, Hiro Kuwashima (tragically
> killed in a road accident aged 26 or 27) then De Vere Moore, Theodore
> Baskin, and in later years, John Snow.
>
> My point is, without hearing these guys live and seeing their musicianship
> in so many different forms, I might never have got to appreciate the type
> of sound that is favoured in the US.
>
> I havent played for a while, but when I do, I like to imagine favoured
> players depending on what I am playing - ie Karl Stein for Mozart, Jiri
> Tancibudek for central European or French Music, Goossens for many of the
> English composers, especially the "pastoral School" and De Vere Moore for
> Richard Strauss, Bruckner, and always not out of site is Ray Still and
> Robert Bloom. Thats the way it goes. I dont sound like any of them, but
> I think the sound and style tends to help mine if I can auralise it.
>
> Yes style ( or in some cases, the lack of it) is personal, but likewise I
> abhor the homogeneity of sound - one used to be able to pick the orchestra
> by the sound of the wind players (particularly oboists he sez with a little
> bias), and it was fun where where were 2 principals in a section (as in the
> Berlin Phil) and it was great fun trying to pick who it was playing -
> really made one listen.
>
> Guess I am being nostalgic, and on saying that, there are some fabulous
> performers around today. The over all standard is incredible, but have we
> sold our souls?
>
> Geoff Pearce
> Oboe
> Sydney
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: herb fawcett
> Date: 01/29/06 17:44:53
> To: doublereed@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [DR-L] re: tinny-ness of gramophones
>
> I really love Archie Camden's K191 as I do Oubradous' K191 and the spurious
> #2. Even modern cleaned up CDs don't get rid of the junk on those old
> Recordings. I used to have an LP that had some stuff on it that was done by
> Kell when he was here for a while. Wow, what an influential clarinetist.
> Never could get around the European oboe style,especially the English and
> The Dutch. I guess I was "Labate and Tabuteau-washed". Now there is such a
> Homogeneity of sound in all the instruments. A pity in a way. Fortunately
> Style remains quite personal.
> Best,
> Herb
>
>
> On 1/28/06 11:26 PM, "Geoff Pearce" <oboist2@-----.au> wrote:
>
>> Well I had one - actually I believe that a company in India is still
>> making them. I had a few hundred 78 records to go with it, including the
>> Mozart oboe Quartet (Leon Goossens), Clarinet Quintet (Reginald Kell) and
>> Bassoon Concerto (Archie Camden) - They were just some of the great
>> recordings I had - sounded fantastic on the old gramophone, especially if
>> you sat back a little. Some recordings, just like today, were better
>> than others, but in interpretation, but also surface noise. I only hope
>> that more are released in CD, BUT - there was an atmosphere all of its
>> own on gramophone.
>>
>> I listen to a lot of modern recordings, a great deal of scholarship, and
>> my God, what technique - but sometimes there is a decided lack of soul or
>> true "atmosphere"
>>
>> Geoff Pearce
>> Oboe
>> Sydney
>>
>> -------Original Message-------
>>
>> From: herb fawcett
>> Date: 01/29/06 17:19:58
>> To: doublereed@-----.org
>> Subject: Re: [DR-L] re: tinny-ness of gramophones
>>
>> We had one where you could use either the steel needle or one adapted from
> a
>>
>> Cactus needle. Wish I still had it. That and the ice box which used a
> block
>> Of ice, and a wet rag covered the butter.
>> Herb
>>
>>
>> On 1/28/06 10:36 PM, "john vasko" <boanerges@-----.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Keith,
>>> have you ever seen or listened to a real old Gramaphone (brand name),
>>> the kind one had to wind up, with the needle attached to a small
>>> diaphragm
>>> from which the sound emanated? I used to have one. It was somewhat
>>> tinny and false of tone.
>>> I'm sure you did not make your recording with such a device.
>>> John Vasko
>>>
>>> On Jan 28, 2006, at 7:11 PM, Keith Sklower wrote:
>>>
>>>> Though I agree with the overall sentiment of Shaw's poem,
>>>> the lines:
>>>>
>>>> }I have listened to music from a gramophone,
>>>> }It is somewhat tinny and false in tone.
>>>>
>>>> are fighting words to a recording engineer!
>>>>
>>>> I made a recording of a live chamber music concert a couple or 3 years
>>>> ago of 2 Oboe and English Horn music that was accurate enough that
>>>> Yvgeny Izotov gave a copy to his former teacher Ralph Gomberg,
>>>> and San Francisco Symphony English Hornist Julie Giaccobassi's husband
>>>> has been trying to persuade her to release it ...
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Keith L. Sklower
>>>>
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>>
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>
>
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