Klarinet Archive - Posting 000995.txt from 1998/05
From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] The Wind Ensemble
Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 18:05:41 -0400
On Sun, 17 May 1998, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:
> Please! You are playing a silly word game with me. The wind ensemble,
> wind band, wind orchestra, wind section, etc. are terms that have been
> used for a long time in a very general sense. Just like the
> word "Harmonie" or "Harmony musick" [sic]. But in the sense of
> modern military bands being redesigned by Fennell to perform music
> one person per part, and being described as a "Wind Ensemble," that
> is a contemporary event that does not date from before 1951.
>
> So using sarcasm in the way you did above serves you ill.
No.....I was trying to be humourous. I believe that terms like wind
ensemble have been around longer than Fennell has been alive. I am aware
of his labeling his Eastman Wind Ensemble so that he could claim a new
Genre......I just find the whole thing to be amusing.....Wind Ensemble,
specifically, is just that.......an ensemble made up of winds. If Fennell
wants to call it one on a part.......great!
I'm not sure how using sarcasm in the above way serves me ill?
> Don't say never Roger. He used 60 clarinets in the year 1953 as an
> experiment. Prior to that and following that he used fewer, but 1953
> was an experiment in which 60 were used.
I have a program from 1953 plus all of the live concert tapes from that
year.....the clarinet section was smaller in number (as was the band) than
in 1970 when he had 28 clarinets.
Your post implied that Revelli used 60 clarinets on a regular basis....if
it was an experiment for a concert.........great.......let's try to
include all of that information when you post.
> Indeed Revelli was top dog in that school, he was a one person department, and
> did have a reputation for having important bands of enormous size.
> Whether they were good or not is arguable, not that I suggest that they
> were not good. But having a reputation for the finest bands is subjective.
> Have a reputation for the biggest bands is objective. That is what
> he went for: size.
110 students is not enormous........try guest conducting 350 (the last one
I did had 11 rows, and stretched between both baskets on a basket ball
court!)........then you know what enormous is.
No.....he went for a standard instrumentation that reflected the music he
was playing.....primarily orchestral transcriptions. Also, his first 12
clarinetists were terrific, followed by quick drop-off......meaning that
he cut and edited players out of parts.....this was his secret to
amazingly clean and flawless performances. That was part of his
philosophy of a big band......including the ones that he had at Hobart.
I didn't label the band as one of the finest in the nation, Goldman (both
Edwin Franko and his son Richard Franko), Sousa, Robert Russell Bennet,
Grainger (a personal friend of Revelli's), Leroy Anderson (don't scoff at
that one!), Eric Liedzen, and many others that slip my mind went on record
as making the "subjective" claim.
Unless you understand the reasons Revelli did what he did, please don't
send such speculative information to the web sit under the guise of it
being, somehow, informed.
Roger Garrett
IWU
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