Klarinet Archive - Posting 000004.txt from 1996/01

From: Donald Oehler <dloehler@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Piotr Michalowski asks about Reginald Kell
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 11:48:39 -0500

This is a nice message on R. Kell, Dan. I began clarinet in the mid 50's
and not long after my first efforts my parents got me some of the few
recordings available at the time, namely a Mozart Concerto and the
Debussy/Stravinsky, etc. recordings by Reginald Kell. Not having heard any
other clarinetists, other than my colleagues at school in the 7th grade
band, I assumed this was the way things were done when one became a real
clarinetist. Today I have four recordings to my name and two are the very
records that my parents gave me so many years ago. I have never felt
it necessary to get other recordings as all I ever cared about was
listening to those beautiful musical performances that he did. The ease
in which music came from his instrument should be the standard for all
of us. It certainly has been for me.

On Sun, 31 Dec 1995, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> I tried on three separate occasions to make some comments on the
> subject of Reginald Kell. Each time, it wasn't right so I scratched it
> before posting it. This is the third effort. I am glad that Kell can be
> the center of a discussion and, for what it is worth, here are my
> opinions on the matter.
>
> Reginald Kell's greatest problem was, during his time, he played like
> no other clarinet player alive, and that is always a dangerous thing to
> do in any epoch. As the Japanese say, a nail that sticks out needs to
> be hammered down, and that is what happened with Kell. Because I
> am always hollering "be specific" when someone makes a statement
> like the one I just made, I intend to be so. Just be patient for a
> moment longer.
>
> After WW2, Kell came to America to begin a career as a professional
> clarinet soloist, as Stolzman is today. But while a solo
> clarinetist is not an aberration today, it certainly was then. And he
> was a dramatic player with a special way of playing music that caused
> a great deal of animosity. It is not that we did not have great players
> in America, nor did Kell have the fastest hands in the world. It had
> nothing to do with that. At his level, there were many players of equal
> technical competence in America.
>
> I neither know nor care if Kell played with vibrato, excessive or not.
> That was never the issue, though it was said to be so by everyone and
> his brother. Kell's problem was that no one, absolutely no one under-
> stood or played rubato the way he did, and in fact, the art of rubato
> playing was really revived by him. Lots of players heard what he did
> and then tried it but it never came out the same way, and the reason
> was that so few understood rubato because we had no tradition in it.
> It was a performance practice that had ceased to be a part of the
> clarinet player's vocabulary.
>
> But Kell had read Mozart's description of how he played rubato. It
> is in a letter Mozart wrote to his father. There he describes everyone
> else's piano playing and how, when they play rubato, both hands slowed
> down at the same time and then both sped up at the same time in
> order not to injure the tempo; that is, one "robs" time from one
> portion of the measure and puts it elsewhere, but the entire measure's
> duration remains unaffected by the act. That is what "rubato" means:
> to rob time. Mozart said that when he played rubato, one hand kept
> at constant speed while the other slowed down and then, later, sped up
> so that the bar ending would be right on the money and the time
> robbed was paid back within the same bar. It is not easy to do.
>
> And Kell, whenever he played the Brahms sonatas with an
> accompanist made certain that, when he played rubato, the
> accompanist kept clicking away right on tempo. It was a dramatic
> musical effect that almost drove me mad with joy when I heard it.
> And no one duplicated it because they never understood his secret and
> so, when they tried it, it did not work as well as for Kell. Of course
> it didn't. Mozart had found a great way to play rubato in a very
> iconoclastic fashion and the only one who made value out of this
> information was Kell.
>
> It was in this way that Kell became a nail that stuck up out of the
> wood and had to be hammered down. So some very big guns in
> American clarinet playing made comments about his "ugly English
> sound" (God should have given me such a sound!!), and his "out-of-
> character vibrato" (and if someone will tell me what an "in-character
> vibrato" is I would be very grateful), etc., etc. But I must have been
> too stupid to be influenced by that kind of talk. I didn't know enough
> about clarinet playing to understand all the technical details of what
> he was being criticized for. I simply listened to his recordings and
> quietly went crazy with happiness about the way he played.
>
> Today, something like 20 years after he died, younger player who never
> heard him or even knew what he did are talking about Kell's "ugly
> English sound" and "out-of-character vibrato." I saw it on this board
> when we were discussing the national character of sound and vibrato.
> And from whom did they get this view? Guess! Their teachers of
> course, who probably got it from their teachers. Remember that Kell's
> hey-day was the late 1940s and the 1950s. It was all over for him by
> that time. He had become soured to music, to playing, to the clarinet,
> and damn near to life. John Denman once told me that he went over
> to see Kell and asked to see his clarinets. Kell couldn't even find
> them, that's how lost he was to playing.
>
> He did something in a way that no one else in the clarinet playing
> world did it, and instead of making him king, that same clarinet
> playing world shit all over him. It is one of the most remarkable
> tragedies for clarinet playing of the last century.
>
> The realization that an artist of his caliber was lost to the clarinet
> playing community and to music in general because of jealousy,
> ignorance, and chauvinism was my first step on the path of
> iconoclasm. I figured that anyone who played that brilliantly and not
> be made emperor showed a flaw in the attitude of clarinet players.
> ====================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> (leeson@-----.edu)
> ====================================
> ====================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> (leeson@-----.edu)
> ====================================
>