Klarinet Archive - Posting 000824.txt from 1996/03

From: Dan Oberlin <oberlin@-----.EDU>
Subj: Gallodoro, Cioffi
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:30:33 -0500

I grew up in the 50's and 60's in a small Oklahoma town, not yet quite on
the map musically, called Bartlesville. My first teacher was a man
named Frank Pronio who essentially supported himself by giving clarinet
lessons to some of us kids. (There were one or two other instances at
that time of small towns in Oklahoma with men like Mr. Pronio who made
their living giving clarinet lessons, and so one suspects that this sort
thing was not uncommon back then. I'd conjecture that there are,
unfortunately, few such teachers today- anyone know of an example?)
Mr. Pronio was a big fan of Al Gallodoro. One of my pieces at some point was
Gallodoro's schmaltzy arrangement for clarinet and piano of Chopin's Fantasy
Impromptu. Gallodoro recorded this with orchestral accompaniment. Mr.
Pronio's favorite Gallodoro story was of little Al playing the Flight of
the Bumblebee on e flat clarinet (as he wasn't yet big enough for anything
larger) in 57 seconds! Cioffi was another of Mr. Pronio's favorites. I
recall listening over and over to my father's recordings of the Tchaikovsky
symphonies with the BSO, loving the color that their woodwinds had,
and trying to figure out how I could sound like Cioffi, too. (Crystal
mouthpieces were popular in that area at that time because of one
Dwight Dailey, later my teacher and colleague for a few years in the Tulsa
Philharmonic. Maybe Brad Behn can say how Dwight is doing these days?)
Who did you listen to when you were starting out, especially those who
grew up away from the big towns and well-known orchestras? Whose sound
would you have given any or all of your tenth grade possessions to be able
to duplicate? For me, it was Cioffi.

Dan Oberlin