Klarinet Archive - Posting 000215.txt from 1996/07

From: "Fogle, Bill" <bill.fogle@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: French style [?]
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 17:39:55 -0400

Art wrote:
>
>I was taught double embouchure from an Italian clarinetist in the San
Francisco
>Symphony. I always thought it was favored by Italians. I think Gino Cioffi
>(formerly Boston SO) played it, and I would expect many other famous
players
>could be named.

I think that's absolutely right. I have a book (not, unfortunately, with me
at the
moment) by an Italian player that devotes most of a chapter to a defense of
the double-lip embouchure. I would have thought the "French" way, because
of their more characteristically piercing tone color----hotly debated here---
-would
be single-lip embouchure. While I believe a single-lip embouchure is
completely capable of producing warm, mellow, dull sounds as
needed, I do believe it is difficult to be piercing with the double-lip
technique.