Klarinet Archive - Posting 000718.txt from 1998/03

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Ricardo Morales -Nielsen
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 21:24:23 -0500

On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, David C. Blumberg wrote:

> Is that the Clarfest 1992 in Cincinatti performance? It was great!!!!!!!
> ("one-take" too)

By default a one-take and, yes, it is the very one. A bootleg
recording, if you will. Here's the educational part about this:
The quality of the dub is poor, and his tone is fair-to-crappy,
and yet it's impossible not to sit there with your jaw wide open
at the music that he makes. It really brings into sharp relief
the issue of whether somebody is merely a practitioner, or a
true musician. Ricardo could play on a stock Buffet mouth-
piece and a student model Artley and still send chills up
your spine with the music that he makes. I remember his
opening recital at ClarinetFest '95 in Arizona. I wasn't
even mildly thrilled with the quality of his tone, but his
musicianship is so Herculean, it was all I could think about.
Maybe sadly, the rest of the fest was an anticlimax after
his performance that afternoon. What was funny was break-
fast with him an hour beforehand. He and Rachel ordered
two huge fruit salads with cottage cheese and proceeded
to tell me all about their diet. Terrific people, those two.

Neil