Klarinet Archive - Posting 000305.txt from 1994/10

From: Lorne G Buick - Music TA <lgbuick@-----.CA>
Subj: National Schools
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 22:35:05 -0400

Well well well (three holes in the ground). After a week of intense
audition preparation (too little too late, it seems- didn't make the first
cut) I return to find my inbox ballooned up to 98 messages, with debate
raging on several fronts. This one is one I have a definite opinion on,
and hopefully some justification for my opinion.

The first thing I did was rush to my record collection and start pulling
out clarinet records to see if clarinetists from different countries sound
different. No, let me rephrase that: it has always been obvious to me that
they sound different, so I wanted to find out more specifically why, and
whether other musicians would agree. The only willing subject I could find
in the house was my wife who is a professional flute/ piccolo player, so I
sat her down and made her listen to 11 clarinet records- only a few
seconds of each, actually, just long enough for her to either guess the
nationality or form an opinion of the sound. Her first reaction was "I
might be able to identify the North American ones, but I don't know what
the Europeans sound like." Sure enough, she identified the Americans;
guessed that the French ones were from the same country, but didn't know
which one; and identified similarities in the Brits and Germans, though
less consistently.

In more detail:
The two Americans were Eddie Daniels (Weber quintet) and Robert Marcellus
(Mozart Cto.). Both dark, focused, mellow, and homogeneous sounding (her
description)

Two Frenchmen: Guy Dangain (Weber again) and Andre Boutard (Poulenc
Sonata): both bright, unfocused, and not homogeneous.

The Englishmen were less similar: Reginald Kell (dark, weird, sounds like
horn has no resistance); Colin Bradbury (bright, spread tone, sounds
English, didn't like); and Gervase de Peyer (sometimes dark, high register
bright, definitely not American.

The Germans confused her (partly because I mixed Germans and Viennese, and
don't have a very good sample of either) : Alfred Boskovsky (bright , odd-
sounding, nasal); Karl Leister (ultra-dark, introverted, homogeneous, but
not American); and Peter Schmidl (like Leister but somewhat spread and not
as dark).

Also I threw in an American who sounded thin and bright in the particular
recording- Harold Wright in the Shepherd on the Rock from Marlboro, and
she put him in with the French players.

So does this prove anything? Hardly. But like most of the issues we
discuss here, there are no cut-and-dried answers. I find it absurd to say
that there are no identifiable national styles in clarinet playing. I find
it equally absurd to say that all English players sound the same, or all
Americans, etc. On the other hand, I chose players to represent national
styles, and I defy anyone to show me a German who sounds like Reginald
Kell, a Frenchman who sounds like Karl Leister, an American who sounds
like Guy Dangain... no wait, I take it back, I'm sure someone knows an
American who went to study with Dangain and sounds just like him.

The point has been raised that these days, more musicians travel all
over the world, study in different countries, and therefore national
styles are less identifiable especially in younger players. I quite agree,
and to illustrate what I consider to be the national schools I would
choose all older players (and Eddie!). I myself studied in Chile with an
Argentine clarinetist whose education might have been programmed by the
UN: his teacher in Argentina encouraged him to listen to German, Austrian,
and British clarinetists, and he later went to London and Paris to study
with John McCaw and Guy Deplus.

Well this is getting a bit long... any reaction, anyone?