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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000025.txt from 2006/02

From: "Gerald E. Corey" <geraldcorey@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] RE: Ray Still/Heinz Holliger
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:46:02 -0500

Hello Jackie (et al and for Rhonda re 2nd oboe Chicago S.O.)
I enjoyed Rhonda's even-handed analysis of the oboe tone and technique
thread - excellent! I think it would have been my friend from the 1956-60
Fine Arts Wind Quintet of Washington, D.C., Richard (Dick) Kanter, who has
played next to Ray Still on second oboe for many seasons, and likely would
have been the duet partner of Ray in Also Sprach Zarathustra. Gerald Corey,
Ottawa
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jackie Kovach" <jl.kovach@-----.net>
To: <doublereed@-----.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [DR-L] RE: Ray Still/Heinz Holliger

> Wonderfully put, Rhondda.
>
> Jackie Kovach
>
> On Feb 1, 2006, at 9:40 PM, Rhondda May wrote:
>
>> American oboists tend to be rather parochial - it's the result of living
>> in a very large isolated country. I heard a lot of what you describe
>> when I was a student in the US. I'll never forget the first time I
>> listened to the Das Lied von der Erde recording with the New
>> Philharmonia - Sidney Sutcliffe was the oboist, and his playing
>> absolutely knocked me over with its expressiveness and beauty. I was
>> lucky to meet up with an experience like that as a young player, because
>> it served to innoculate me against the more severe kinds of oboistic
>> xenophobia.
>>
>> I was thinking more over the last 24 hours about this discussion and I
>> realized there's something that I don't think anyone has mentioned. The
>> kind of physical hand-technique that Mr. Holliger has is really a gift,
>> a truly extraordinary talent. We are all encouraged, in every aspect of
>> our lives, to "play to our strengths." If you have the kind of gift of
>> physical technique that a person like Mr. Holliger has, why on earth
>> should you NOT play a zillion notes? Why should you NOT commission
>> works from every major composer you can, extending the range of the
>> instrument farther than had been imagined? I would imagine it to be as
>> natural as breathing. And there's a lot of music that the oboe world
>> would not have but for him. The same can be said of Jennifer Paull, the
>> champion of the oboe d'amore. One knows oneself, and one then goes
>> forward. Think Paganini.
>>
>> Those of us without an extraordinary finger technique find our strengths
>> and play to those. Fortunate indeed is he who is, as the Talmud
>> describes: "happy with what he(or she) has."
>>
>> Mr. Still once told me about a conversation he had with Neil Black, of
>> the English Chamber Orchestra. He mentioned that he envied Mr. Black
>> all his Mozart concerti; Mr. Black retorted that he envied Mr. Still all
>> his Mahler symphonies. Do any of us really like everything we have?
>> Probably not.
>>
>> I put on the CD of Chicago and Reiner playing Strauss's Also Sprach
>> Zarathustra last night, with this whole discussion still percolating
>> about in my psyche. I remember Mr. Still's playing on this recording -
>> there is a very small little section in the middle of this piece where
>> the 1st and 2nd oboes trade off a tiny little lick that isn't very hard
>> to play, but the difference in the way Mr. Still and the 2nd oboist at
>> that time (Jerry Sirucek? anybody know?) played that lick is hard to
>> believe without hearing it. That, to me, is a precis of what was best
>> about Mr. Still's playing: the life, vitality, and rhythmic energy; a
>> level beyond simple accuracy. To him, this was more important than Mr.
>> Holliger's spectacular finger technique. But that was HIS gift, not Mr.
>> Holliger's.
>>
>> Would I, poor little old ME, would I rather listen to those orchestral
>> recordings than to Mr. Holliger's mountain of performances of showpieces
>> and avant-garde works? Oh, absolutely! But that's just me. That's just
>> taste. (Actually I think it's more than "just" taste, but let's not go
>> into that. Whatever it is, it is individual.)
>>
>> Is one better than the other? Only to the people involved! To the rest
>> of us they're like facets of the same diamond.
>>
>> We are awfully lucky, when you think of it, to have both these men as
>> examples of what can be done with our poor little oboes and reeds. And
>> the other great players of this and previous generations. All over the
>> world.
>>
>> As to whether Mr. Still should have made such a remark.... no, probably
>> not. But who among us has never said anything he/she shouldn't've?? To
>> quote a dear friend: "...people are not nice, people are people."
>>
>
>
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