Klarinet Archive - Posting 000518.txt from 1998/05

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] A clarinets
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 11:01:58 -0400

This can happen.

In a (thank God) rehearsal in my orchestra this spring, we were bouncing
around Bruckner 9. As usual, 90% of the time was spent watching the
violinists and violists do battle over bowings and otherwise fiddling
around.

Needless to say, our conductor switched us to a different movement at a
particular measure. ALL THREE of us clarinets proceeded to come in, using
the wrong horn of course. Since we were *perfectly* in tune with each
other, it sounded particularly weird.

Our conductor furrowed his brow when stopped, and asked what the $#=* was
going on. We told him that we were playing the Schoenberg by mistake.

kjf

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Kissinger [mailto:kissingerjn@-----.EDU]
Subject: Re: [kl] A clarinets

I took my daughter to a concert by one of the better local "community"
orchestras
here a month or so ago. One of the pieces on the program was the Wieniewski
Second Violin Concerto, performed by a guest soloist from the St. Louis
Symphony.
During the opening tutti, there is a fairly long clarinet solo and, you
guessed
it, the orchestra's principle clarinetist played it (untransposed) on the
wrong
clarinet. He later explained that the cue telling him which instrument to
use was
rather small and he missed it. After a couple of notes, he got this look on
his
face, like "What is wrong with this instrument?" and several of the nearby
orchestra members turned and looked at him as if he had just done something
extremely unpleasant -- which, of course he had. Someone finally told him
that he
was using the wrong instrument. Needless to say, at intermission, he was
extremely embarassed over his error and I don't think the conductor was
amused.
Of course, I have to wonder how often he had practiced the piece and how
often the
orchestra had rehearsed it. This was the first time I'd ever seen that
happen
(though there is a wonderful story in the archives about a prominent English
clarinetist who only needed his Bb for a pit job and managed to show up with
the
upper joint from his Bb and the lower joint from his A).

Oh yes, after that little problem, the soloist played beautifully and I
really
don't think most of the audience even noticed the mistake ( it was
Wieniewski
after all ;^) ).

Best regards,
Jack Kissinger
St. Louis

C E Field wrote:

> Karen, I speak from limited experience but...
>
> I have played both Buffet R13 and Selmer Series 9 A clarinets. The tone is
> WONDERFULLY deep and rich on both of the instruments I have used. An A
> clarinet, as you may know, is just a couple inches longer than the Bb
> clarinet. The fingerings are the same. You can use your existing Bb
> mouthpiece. Switching from A to Bb and vice-versa during a performance is
not
> a big deal...you just move the mouthpiece from one to the other. Keeping
track
> of which clarinet you SHOULD be using on any particular page can be a bit
> tricky if there are many changes back and forth ;-) But getting used to
> playing an A clarinet itself takes all of about 5 minutes.
>
> Cindy
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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