Klarinet Archive - Posting 000435.txt from 1996/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Italian Clarinet Players
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 13:35:30 -0400

Merlin von Frankenburg described his hearing of an Italian wind group
that played K. 361 and that reminded me of another reason why few
students go to Italy to study clarinet (though that may be very unjustified).

You all know that I am an opera buff, so I spend a lot of time listening
to singers, particularly with respect to style issues. And I must admit
that I am very discouraged - and have been so for a long time - at the
incredible downfall of the vocal arts in Italy. And this downfall is
not restricted to the repertoire for which Italy was not reknowned, such
as Wagner, and French opera. It is even true (in my opinion) in the
meat and potato Italian operas that they should be able to mount
at the blink of an eye.

The singing is so awful (with the exception of a few remarkable
artists) that one can no longer rank Italy as a place to study singing,
either from the viewpoint of vocal production technique or style,
certainly not style. Their productions of the Mozart operas are
so bad that I once left a theater in Loggia half way through a
performance of "Il flauto magico."

And that is the problem I find in the Italian school of clarinet playing.
The hands are sensational. They miss nothing. Great technicians. But,
recently, I have heard no Italian clarinet play a work like the Nielsen
concerto with any understanding of how the piece should go, though every
note is played, of course. And I am afraid to hear a performance of
K. 622 or K. 581 for fear of what I might find.

I know that this is a terrible picture that may exist only in my own
mind, but for what it is worth, that is why I brought this subject
up in the first place; i.e., to inquire if I were simply being
unreasonable in my perception of the Italian clarinet school.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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