Klarinet Archive - Posting 000818.txt from 1999/09

From: "Jay Webler" <webler@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Features, styles and the Copland concerto
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 21:12:58 -0400

To put it briefly, if I understand what you are saying, Copland's style
did influence Benny Goodman and Benny Goodman, being the good
musician that he was, followed the style of the Composer. Which is as
it should be.

Jay Webler
Jay's Clarinet and Percussion

On Thu, 23 Sep 1999 15:12:09 +0100, Tony Pay wrote:

>On Wed, 22 Sep 1999 22:36:43 -0400, webler@-----.net said:
>
>> On the recording by Benny Goodman that section was played straight and
>> short. The Bass was being plucked very hard. I was surprised to hear
>> it played this way since Benny was the "King of Swing". Copland was
>> the conductor, so maybe he had some influence.
>

>But within Copland's style, *'swing' is not a stylistic element*. So
>quite apart from the questionability of suddenly not playing what the
>composer has written, if in passage Q we suddenly apply it, *the 'swing'
>takes on the status of a foreground feature*. And the 'taste' of this
>sudden, unprepared jazz feature is a very strong one. In my view, a
>performer who applies it in this way hasn't understood Copland's
>technique. I would go so far as to say that to do so is to risk
>destroying the unity of the Concerto.
>
>
>
>Goodman was the 'King of Swing'; but as well as that, he was no fool.
>He was well aware of different styles, and how the stylistic norms of
>his own music were different from the stylistic norms of other music --
>as is shown by his courageous act of taking lessons to improve his
>playing of that other music. (That he was perhaps less successful in
>this other music than he was in his own can hardly be held against him,
>given his superlative talent in his own field.)
>

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