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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000039.txt from 2006/02

From: herb fawcett <herbgosia@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [DR-L] RE: Ray Still/Heinz Holliger... Favorites?
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:02:17 -0500

Geoff.
To address your first paragraph:
Just because it is a band instrument doesn't mean it has to sound like one!
In the great years of the New York Wind Quintet, Garfield has told me they
spent a great deal of time trying to determine how NOT to sound like the
stereotypical wind quintet. John Barrows, their hornist, did a statistical
analysis of the difficult pairings, and intonation problems and other things
that didn't work well. He wrote a book of exercises (that should sell well)
which they worked on at every rehearsal session. It was in fact at one of
those sessions that Sam Barber decided to write the Summer Music. The
apocryphal story goes: Sam heard all the very difficult things to do in
quintet and then wrote Summer Music to include all of them. Ha Ha.
I detest wind quintets, and prefer to play in groups which have some
pairings in them. Ours is a not a string quartet where the sounds are all
complementary. It is a gathering of iconoclasts who have to learn to "get
along" sonically.
I spent a lot of time in conservatory learning how NOT to play all picky and
nasal just because it was easier on the instrument. How dry is a bassoon! So
if we try to make a sound like a pizzicato, we have no resonance like a
cello to rely on; maybe we should be playing a tongued legato. After all
staccato doesn't mean ugly and nasty (quack), it just means separated. Any
effort to make a musical instrument out of a band instrument is quite
commendable. (My apologies to colleagues in the UK where bands are still
considered music.) If our attempt to sound beautiful instead of tweet-tweet,
and toot is what Europeans dislike about American wind playing, I am
delighted. We are doing our job better than I realized.
Best,
Herb

On 2/3/06 2:07 PM, "Geoff Pearce" <oboist2@-----.au> wrote:

> Interestingly enough, a lot of Non-US players dont warm to the American
> sound because they find it too dark and unwieldy from a moderate distance -
> Up close and in chamber music, I have frequently heard the adjective
> frying bacon" been expressed to descibe the buzzy sound one can often hear,
> which is not evident from a distance but is frequently up close. Many
> non-US players I think also have an issue that many US schooled players tend
> to smooth out detached lines and make the tongue strokes longer and this
> renders such passages "tongued" legato.
>
> I guess at the end of the day, like any discipline, every style or school
> has its own preferences as to how things should be done. Personally
> although I have been taught fairly constantly in one school, I hope that I
> can appreciate other ways of doing and thinking. I do not think I sound
> like anyone from my school, but on saying that, I have a pretty firm idea
> on what I want to sound like.
>
> One of the dangers of comparing schools is that we get saturated with one
> sound, and then very often are either exposed to other sounds through the
> recording media only (which, not to offend sound engineers in the list) and
> that sounds quite different from hearing things live, when all sorts of
> other forces come in to play. If we are exposed live, its often by
> visiting orchestras or chamber players, that we are infrequently exposed to
> and that can mean an unconcious bias.
>
> All the best to you all
> Geoff Pearce (oboe)
> Sydney
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: Barbara trautwein
> Date: 02/04/06 00:26:05
> To: doublereed@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [DR-L] RE: Ray Still/Heinz Holliger... Favorites?
>
> Parochial is the word! In my isolation, I have never heard OF, let
> Alone heard the playing of, many of the players listed below (except, of
> Course, Allan Vogel and Elaine Douvas who both are wonderful).
>
> Shame on me!
>
> Stephen, not meaning to be picky but what do you mean when you say Allan
> Vogel's "dark quality gets in the way"? In the way of what? His
> Musicality? Do you have trouble hearing that because his sound detracts
> You? That was the problem I had when listening to the European players
> From the mid - 20th Century. I just couldn't get past what I had been
> Taught as being the "wrong" sound to even be able to sense musicality.
>
> I believe that the Americans felt that the depth of the dark sound
> Enabled a player to reach an intensity of musical expression which
> Didn't ring true with a lighter sound or one permeated with a buzzy
> Vibrato.
>
> I think that at the beginning of the 20th Century, the European
> Orchestras played repertoire related to their home bases: Parisian
> Groups played French music, Italian orchestras played Rossini and
> Vivaldi, Germanic groups played Brahms. American orchestras, on the
> Other hand, having virually NO repertoire of their own, had to play
> Everything, French, German, Italian, Czech etc., and in bigger halls.
> That, supposedly, was why Tabuteau devised the reed style and tone
> Concept that he did. . .so that he could address the entire repertoire
> And have it heard in all dynamic ranges in the the back of the big
> Auditoriums.
>
> I realize that this is pretty simplistic but I think this is what many
> Of us were taught. . . To make a reed with a core that would enable the
> Tone to project with the richness needed in Brahms and Schumann but to
> Be flexible enough to deal with Daphnis and Chloe and La Scala di Seta
> And be responsive enough so that one would still be alive at the end of
> A 10 to 13 service week.
>
> I'm . . .uh. . . .still working on it. . . .
>
> And I'd better get going. . . .
>
> Barbara
>
> Stephen Kaupiko wrote:
>
>> Just so my liking of Heinz isn't taking too out of
>> context these are my favorite oboists... In order of
>> how I'm feeling right now.
>>
>> I wonder what everyone else likes. It would be nice to
>> hear some new things.
>>
>> The list:
>>
>> Lajos Lences - Beautiful "singing" quality
>>
>> Ruth Bolister - Absolutley lovely "regal" sound.
>>
>> Pierre Pierlot - Simply floats on air with occaisional
>> unexpected breezes of heavenly bliss.
>>
>> Hansjorg Schellenberger - Sweet and lilting
>>
>> Christian Hommel - Like butter!
>>
>> Cynthia DeAlmeida - She's has a bit of reedy character
>> with a smidgen bit of that darkness. Very lovely
>> playing.
>>
>> Allan Vogel - Absolutley phenomenal, but sometimes
>> that dark quality gets in the way.
>>
>> Elaine Douvas - Very exressive and lyrical, but a bit
>> submerged (I think it's the recording though)
>>
>> Burkhard Glaetzner - Sweet, if a bit submerged.
>>
>> Heinz Holliger - Baroque personified. Paired with a
>> harpsichord his tone color rises to the occaision.
>>
>> ...left off the ones I didn't like, for lack of space.
>> (Kidding!) >;)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Stephen
>>
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>
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