Klarinet Archive - Posting 000450.txt from 1998/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: American Woodwind Playing
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 22:41:46 -0400

On Sat, 10 Oct 1998 13:41:44 -1300, leeson@-----.edu said:

> Would Sabina Meyer sound significantly different if she played on
> a French system? And before one answers that question too rapidly,
> does the current principal clarinet in Los Angeles sound significantly
> different today on her German system than she did years ago when she
> played French system.

Hi, Dan.

It probably depends on what music she's playing. My own experience of
playing on both sorts of instrument is that each instrument has its own
strengths. So playing lightish music on a German instrument (for which
it isn't particularly suited) sounds a bit too serious, whereas it's
difficult to play the very slow moving solos, where a dense sound works
well, quite so effectively on the French instrument.

You can approximate, of course.

But, does she sound different to you?

> It is easy to wax rhapsodic about the obvious differences between
> the two systems but, even if there is such a significant difference,
> is that due to equipment or culture? A French, French horn sounds
> very much like the French horn that we know when played without
> a vibrato. So is that a cultural issue or a mechanical one?
>
> And that brings me back to the clarinet players of the 1940s who
> played on German systems. None of them were German. So what did
> they sound like? Did Bellison sound Russian (which is where he
> was from and where all of his study was and his formative years, etc.)?

Aren't categories like "Russian" ill-defined?

I once said to Karl Leister that we admired his beautiful German sound.
"But, *I'm* not a *German-style* clarinettist!" he said.

> As both genes and environment are said to share the responsibility
> for the nature of the child as s/he matures, is it equipment or
> culture that forms the mature clarinet player?

Nowadays, with the clarinet players of the Chicago Symphony playing
German instruments in the German repertoire, presumably with the
idea in their heads of sounding different doing so, it's difficult to
reduce it to either, or a combination. Clarinet players are reinventing
themselves, in the world-mix of a global culture.

Good luck to them, I say. Different sounds and different styles for
different requirements.

What do *you* think?

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
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