Klarinet Archive - Posting 001069.txt from 1998/04

From: avrahm galper <agalper@-----.com>
Subj: CLARINETIST'S HELP TO COMPOSERS
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:38:18 -0400

Clarinetist's help to composers

This is not about Mozart and Stadler, or Weber and Baermann,.
Quite different.
It is known that Beethoven used to ask advice for his clarinet parts
from Josef Bahr.
After Bahr died, Beethoven consulted with another famous clarinet
player, Anton Friedlowsky.

There is another such connection between Berlioz and a Parisian clarinet
player, Leroy.
And here is what he says in one of his letters: (Berlioz was in the
midst of writing his opera The Trojans with a famous clarinet solo in it

"The other day as I was finishing the mime scene of Andromache, an
instrumental piece with chorus, I had a visit from the cornettist Arban,
a man with the keenest sense of melodic expression.
He began to sing the clarinet solo in the score of the opera admirably
and there I was in seventh heaven.
Two days later I got the clarinetist at the opera, Leroy, a first class
virtuoso, but cold, to come and try it out.
My piano was a little low in pitch, the two instruments weren't quite in
tune, the virtuoso phrased it "approximately". He found it very "pretty"
and there I was in hell, at odds, ready to throw the whole thing into
the fire.
What a curse is this "approximately" in musical performance!
However, I think the young man will end by understanding his solo if I
make him study it bar by bar."

Avrahm Galper
the upbeat Baermann scales and arpeggios
http://www.s neezy.org/avrahm_galper/index.html

   
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