Klarinet Archive - Posting 000604.txt from 1998/07

From: Kenneth Wolman <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: The Mozart concerto and Mark - or _any_ young
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 15:03:00 -0400

>To my way of thinking, the Mozart concerto for any woodwind player's
>specific instrument is something that should remain in the repertoire for
>life. Anyone ought to be able to have the Mozart concerto ready to play
>with two weeks notice, and we can continue to learn more about playing it
>throughout our lives.

An analogy. Over the weekend, I heard a CD of the Russian baritone Dimitri
Hvorostovsky singing "arie antiche," i.e., arias and art songs from the
18th century, predating Mozart. One of them was something called "Caro Mio
Ben." I don't know who wrote it, but it is one of the first things that
voice students learn to sing once they've learned the fundamentals of
breathing, phrasing, and tone production. It's not a technically monstrous
piece of music: but it is one of those pieces that grows along with you,
that deepens as you do, and that is as beautiful or as pedestrian as the
interpretive skills of the person singing it.

I will guess that the Mozart concerto is something like that. When I was
in junior high school, I could at least get through the thing, and got into
a NYC District Ochestra playing the 2nd movement (the "easy part":-) as an
audition piece. Yet the fact that it's been recorded by dozens of major
symphonic clarinetists and is probably in all their repertoires--yes, on
two weeks' notice--suggests to me that Mozart's music grows along with you.
I've never heard two recordings of K.622 that were exactly the same: I
suspect that no two clarinetists play it the same way, and that no
clarinetist hears it in his or her own head the same way twice.

Ken

Kenneth Wolman Information Technology Morgan Stanley Inc.
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"I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget
one thing while I am saying another." -- St. Teresa of Avila

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