Klarinet Archive - Posting 000777.txt from 1997/05

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: A clarinet
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 01:13:10 -0400

On Wed, 28 May 1997, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

> If you say, "I find the sound character of a C clarinet penetrating
> beyond my wishes to penetrate" I can understand that, but such a
> criticism is blaming a black cat for being black. That is what the
> sound character of a C clarinet is supposed to be, and that very
> cahracter was used by composers in a way to suit their ends.

Now, Dan, are you very sure of that? Were the composers of the 19th
century so myopic and ignorant that they were totally unaware of what
every 20th century clarinetist knows about changing clarinets for
technical reasons? Can we say with certainty that when a composer such
as Mozart wrote for the C, the Bb or the A clarinet, that he did so
exclusively because of the differences in the tone of the instruments, and
that it had nothing to do with availability of instruments, the key of the
work in question, or technical considerations for the performer?

If you play a Mahler symphony with a bass clarinet in Bb and one in A, how
many people can tell that, especially given that much of what you would be
playing would be in the context of a large orchestra and an often thick
texture? Can the conductor tell the difference? Can other clarinetists
tell the difference? Could Mahler himself tell the difference?

Some of the people on this list, unlike old-timers like myself, haven't
been subscribed long enough to have had the benefit of your often stated
positions about the differences in clarinet tone quality. It's not my
intention to disagree with you, but to say that I haven't yet been fully
convinced. As a philosophical stance, I think there is a problem. It
seems to me that you are refuting other people's positions as
unsupportable or untenable with assertions of your own that are not
necessarily more supportable or more tenable. Despite historical
research, the instinct favoring "authentic" performances, and the desire
to recreate the composer's intentions as nearly as possible, in the final
analysis, we have only one final arbiter, and that is our basic musical
instincts. I think there is room for a considerable range of informed
opinion, and that the question doesn't lend itself very well to
black-or-white pronouncements.

I'm a skeptic on both sides of the question. I'm ready to be convinced by
whatever evidence or weight of logic seems most credible.

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu