Klarinet Archive - Posting 000578.txt from 1999/05

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] basset clarinet and K622
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 00:58:36 -0400

On Thu, 13 May 1999 15:56:31 -1300, leeson@-----.edu said:

> > As a young lad, not having an A clarinet, I used to play some of the
> > Mozart last movement on my Bb along with Reginald Kell's 78 rpm
> > record on our family radiogram. It had an adjustable speed, and I
> > just set it so that it would be in tune.

[snip]

> This anecdote is absolutely remarkable. I used to do the same thing
> but without an adjustable turntable. I simple pulled the clarinet
> out at every conceivable joint until the intonation would have
> frightened the Medusa. Then I played it over and over and over.

What a hoot that we both did the same thing....

> As I remember, the 78 rpm disks were in a box that had a little wooden
> peg that went through the record holes. Never saw another like it.

Ah, this is the advanced version. We only had *the one disc*.

> Years later I wanted to tell Kell this when I met him at a party
> in Monterey. He refused to talk about clarinets or clarinet playing
> and kept changing the subject. He had become very bitter.

Bitter about what?

I do remember going to a talk he gave, promoting Boosey and Hawkes
clarinets. I must have been about 14 or so. I remember that someone
queried the intonation of the instruments, and he was very scathing,
saying that *he* had no problems with them, and that intonation was a
function of being a good player, not of having a good clarinet.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

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