Klarinet Archive - Posting 001040.txt from 1998/01

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.net>
Subj: Pasquale Cardillo 1918-1998
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:37:05 -0500

Pasquale Cardillo the former long-time second clarinetist of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra and principal clarinetist of the Boston Pops passed away
this past Tuesday. Below is the obituary from the Boston Globe today. He
was a member of the BSO for 45 years and a teacher of many students in the
Boston area. He taught for many years at Boston University, privately, and
at Tanglewood.

I studied with him in high school and part of college and learned most of
the basic aspects of clarinet playing from him. I still remember my first
lesson with him. I went in to play the Brahms f minor Sonata when I was in
10th grade. Having recently received a nearly perfect score on my All
State audition playing that piece, I thought I knew how to play it.

When I left the lesson, having been stopped by Mr. Cardillo on nearly every
measure, I felt incredibly exhilarated at the prospect of how much more I
had to learn! He was a real stickler for rhythm, sound and dynamics (and
didn't like vibrato, by the way; he always told me to stop; but later on, I
think he started to like it a bit; I never gave up). He was a great
teacher and a great cook!

I thought other past students of his on the list might be interested in the
news of his passing.

--------------------
Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net

***********************************************
Clarinetist with symphony for 45 years; at 79

By Tom Long, Globe Staff, 01/24/98

Pasquale Cardillo, a clarinetist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 45
years, died Tuesday at his home in Newton. He was 79.

"Patsy," as he was called, was a member of the Boston Symphony from 1939
until 1984. He also performed with the Boston Pops.

He was born in 1918 in North Adams and graduated from New England
Conservatory of Music. He joined the symphony in 1939, when conductor Serge
Koussevitzky was frantically searching for a clarinetist to join the
orchestra at Tanglewood, the symphony's summer home in Lenox. Mr. Cardillo
and 20 others auditioned, and the call came to his home in North Adams. "I
came down on the train, and I was numb," Mr. Cardillo recalled in a 1981
Globe interview.

Koussevitzky's temper in rehearsal was legendary. "He would look over the
top of his glasses," Mr. Cardillo recalled, "and that blue vein would start
sticking out of the side of his head, and you knew you had it coming."

Mr. Cardillo said that once, early in his career, he "panicked" and made an
incorrect entry in the final "General Dance" of Ravel's "Daphnis and
Chloe." Because that clarinet solo leads a parade, everyone followed him,
leaving Koussevitzky conducting all alone. Afterward, he was summoned into
the conductor's presence. "What are you doing?" Koussevitzky asked. "Why
you not stop and begin again?"

During another concert, Koussevitzky told Mr. Cardillo, "If you play like
this again, you will kill me." A disaffected bassoonist approached Mr.
Cardillo at intermission and said, "If you play like that again, I'll give
you $25."

A self-described "hot-headed Italian," Mr. Cardillo played for the Boston
Pops under the late Arthur Fiedler. During a rehearsal many years ago, he
became angry with Fiedler and muttered "bastard" under his breath. The
maestro took offense and stalked off the stage. Mr. Cardillo apologized to
Fiedler and the two became friends. In fact, Mr. Cardillo often drove
Fiedler to performances. He recalled one trip when they were stopped at a
traffic light and some teenagers spotted the famous conductor. "Look," they
excitedly called out, "there's Beethoven."

Mr. Cardillo admitted that some of the classically trained Pops musicians
found it awkward - even demeaning - to play the commercially successful
Pops music designed to appeal to mass audiences.

"But nobody has a right to look down his nose at you because you prefer the
Pops to Symphony. It's good music. It's fun," Mr Cardillo said in 1984, and
spoke of an episode when Koussevitzky was conducting a rehearsal of a score
by an American composer.

"It was a cruddy piece," said Mr. Cardillo. "He knew we didn't like it. He
said: `Gentlemen, it doesn't make any difference how you feel about this
music. You have to play it as though it were the greatest music ever
written."'

An accomplished cook, Mr. Cardillo's clam sauce and scampi recipes were
featured in the Boston Symphony Cookbook. He also enjoyed fishing at his
lakeside summer cottage in the Berkshires near Tanglewood.

Mr. Cardillo played his last concert with the Boston Symphony at Symphony
Hall on Sept. 8, 1984. He was said to be delighted that Queen Beatrix of
the Netherlands attended. After he took his final bow, he hurried to the
Berkshires to get in some trout fishing.

He leaves his wife, Charlotte A. (Magnuson); a daughter, Marian Kidder of
Swanton, Vt.; three sons, Thomas of Wrentham, John of Hopkinton, and
Richard of Newton; two sisters, Angela Mullen of North Adams and Christina
Moran of Florida; two brothers, Peter of Florida and Francis of
Williamstown; and eight grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today in St Bernard Church, Newton.