Klarinet Archive - Posting 000212.txt from 1995/10

From: Laura R Bornhoeft <lbornhoe@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Playing her favorite arias on clarinet
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 19:13:11 -0400

Dan:

I'm tentatively scheduled to play the Rigoletto with band in February,
and may be asked for some program notes. Could you possibly provide a
reference or two about these ladies swooning, etc. so I could find a few
more details to entertain the audience?

Thanks much....

Laura Bornhoeft

P.S. If the clarinetist happened to be a woman, would the ladies still
be swooning, and what reaction would the men be expected to have? :)

On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> First, a welcome to Mickie who I gravely misidentified as a he on my
> original positing to her. I apologize to her and also to her husband.
>
> Mickie says that one of her passions is opera and she wants to be
> able to play the famous arias on her clarinet in the future. I share
> with her that that feeling seems to have been in the minds of many
> clarinet players because there was an epoch when all it seemed that
> clarinet players did was to play these incredible fantasys based on
> this or that opera, or this or that composer. They were invariably
> the same general form in that they would begin with a brief introduction
> (on the piano of course), at which point the clarinet would be introduced.
> It would play the main theme of a well known aria, "Caro nome," for
> example. It was invariably played unadorned and with the simplest possible
> accompaniment. All was calm. All was quite.
>
> THEN, IT WOULD HIT THE FAN!! The trick was to see how many notes per cubic
> inch it was possible to sqeeze into the shortest amount of time. Variation
> after variation would follow with each getting harder, wilder, crazier,
> faster, more dense, etc., until the end, at which point the soloist
> lay on his back in full collapse and the women in the audience swooned.
>
> I am not being sexist in this last sentence. This was the Victorian era,
> and women were supposed to swoon when overcome with emotion.
>
> These fantasy pieces are not so easy to come by any longer, but they can
> be found here and there, often in collection. There is a giant one called
> "Fantasy on Rigoletto" or something like that, and as a child I used to
> play one called "Cujus Animam" which was from a religous work of Rossini.
> There is a lovely one arranged by Simeon Bellison from the Beethoven
> variations (for 2 oboes and English horn) on Mozart's La Ci Darem la Mano
> (for clarinet and piano). It never seemed to end.
>
> I was glad when the epoch lost favor. I could never play the really hard
> ones!!
>
> Be patient, Mickie. They will still be there when you are ready to take
> one on.
> ====================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> (leeson@-----.edu)
> ====================================
>