Klarinet Archive - Posting 000029.txt from 1995/01

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Elaine Thompson's inquiry on Stoltzman/Shifrin
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 10:49:09 -0500

Elaine asked my view on the two players. I think them to be both
magnificent, though in different ways. Both are extraordinarily
musical, sensitive, and capable of controlling the clarinet at the
extremes of all of its limits. I go all gooey when I hear Stolzman
play the Mozart viola trio, and I become a blob of vaseline when
I hear Shifrin play the Brahms quintet.

It is very intuitive and is simply no more than a reaction to
their playing.

I believe the Shifrin is more gifted only in the sense that he seems
to have been given his greatness in his genes and Stolztman had to
work to get the kind of skill he now has. But the source of their
gifts is, to me, only of intellectual interest.

Stolztman is a much more dramatic showman and that always adds something
to his performances. He is the only clarinet player I know of who
streaked Grace Rainey Rogers auditorium in NYC after doing the Brahms
Quintet. No kidding!!! It was the talk of NY for months. I really
don't care if he runs around naked in the Vatican, but it did show
a less conservative nature.

Shifrin does not have the kind of temperment to do that. But his
approach to the clarinet is such that he does not need to.

I wish I could play as well as either man. What more can I say?

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================