Klarinet Archive - Posting 000160.txt from 1996/06

From: "James M. Pyne" <jpyne@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Sound characters of clarinet types - redux
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 22:01:56 -0400

This is in response to Dan Leeson's SOUND CHARACTERS OF CLARINET TYPES entry

Hi Dan,

Your reference to the OSU Mozart Festival prompts lots of positive
memories. Thanks again! Your participation both as a performer and scholar
was the vital force that made that festival special.

With regard to sound character, I have always believed that clarinetists
should try to perform on the specified instrument and that there is a
connection between the inherent timbre of a given instrument and the
character of composition. A breakthrough for me as a principal clarinetist
(Buffalo Philharmonic 25 yrs.) was finding a Selmer C clarinet with
excellent intonation, good flexibility and a sweet as well as lively tone.
Many passages in Italian opera, Mahler, Beethoven etc. seemed much more
truthful and rewarding to me.

As you know a good deal of my research deals with the area of timbre, and
clarinet tone-quality has always been of great interest to me both as a
performer and mouthpiece designer. In that timbre is so basic to musical
art it is impossible for me to imagine that our great composers did not
respond, consciously and intuitively, to the unique differences in
tone-quality produced by the clarinet family.

Jim Pyne
Clarinet Studio/Research Group
The Ohio State University School Of Music