Klarinet Archive - Posting 000616.txt from 1997/09
From: Jacqueline Eastwood <eastwooj@-----.EDU> Subj: RE: Well, here we go again Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 02:30:50 -0400
On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
> At the request of the conductor, I simply transposed the entire part. But
> I made certain to put her in a quandary by saying, "Do you prefer the
> sound of an A or B-flat clarinet? I'll do it on the one you say, but you
> must tell me which one you want." She said, "Play it on the same kind
> of clarinet that your colleague is using." After that she no longer
> spoke to me, nor would she cue the clarinet section. So I asked my
> colleage (who was Bill Shadel, the 1st in the NJ Symphony) which clarinet
> he was using, and I chose the other. When he went to A to transpose,
> I went to B-flat, and vice versa.
>
> Oh yes. I never got hired by that woman after that job.
>
> As far as I was concerned, I would have played it on an accordion if
> she requested it. I must tell you about this woman.
>
> She was one of the wealthiest women in New Jersey. Her name was
> Charlotte Bergen and she hired orchestras to rehearse in her home
> in Bernardsville, NJ. She used the NYP to do the concert, but she
> would rehearse with a privately hired orchestra so that, when she
> got in front of the big guys, she would know what to do.
>
> At the time I worked with her she was over 80, wirey, and a former
> oboe pupil of someone who had died 60 years earlier in Paris. It
> was a a very weird set of circumstances. Her mother had died in that
> house 45 years before and she refused to uncover the furniture. It
> was like playing for Miss Haversham in Dickens' "Great Expectations."
>
> =======================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
> leeson@-----.edu
> =======================================
>
What a great laugh! You are so contrary, Dan, that I think we should
start calling you Mary instead.
Jacqueline Eastwood
University of Arizona/Arizona Opera Orchestra
eastwooj@-----.edu
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