Klarinet Archive - Posting 000834.txt from 1999/09

From: Ken Wolman <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] NY Philharmonic Concert of 9/23
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 01:52:59 -0400

At 09:42 AM 9/24/99 -0700, you wrote:

>I don't think that anything ever written would bring him to the
>16 cylinder level. When he did three performances of the Nielsen
>concerto with Bernstein (and I was there for all three), he kept
>insisting that Bernstein go faster. It appeared to me he was on
>about 12 cylinders for the fastest performance.
>
>Never liked him!!!!! Evil man. He made a compact with the devil to
>be able to play that well.

I keep repeating one salient fact that floors me every time: I'm 55 years
old, so when Stanley Drucker joined the Philharmonic I was four. Who was
the music director at the time, Mitropoulos? I really don't know. Bruno
Walter and Leopold Stokowski are also listed as principal conductors at the
time Drucker signed on.

It's a joy to watch this man play. I suppose he's 71 years old but he
seems still to take absolute joy in the act of playing a clarinet. He
appears to all but dance in his chair while playing material he's probably
played a thousand times. There is something awe-inspiring in watching
someone do what they do from pure joy.

Rostropovich also amazes me. There too...I suspect he played a few wrong
notes here and there but that may be inevitable. I once, many years ago,
sat in a stage seat in Carnegie Hall for a Rubinstein Chopin recital, about
six feet from the keyboard, and the man hit a couple of wrong notes. But
what is undeniable then as now is the passion in the playing, the look on
their faces, the intensity and concentration in which you become the
re-creator of the music, no matter how often you've played it. You watch a
virtuoso's virtuoso like Rostropovich, Rubinstein, or for that matter
Drucker, and with both eyes and ears you witness a sense of being possessed
by the music. You are in command of the music, but at some level the music
itself still owns you and you never stop being awed by it.

Last thought: I have never heard anyone play the opening theme of the
Tchaikovsky 5th second movement as beautifully as Philip Myers did last
night. Breathtaking.

Ken

---------------
Kenneth Wolman http://www.rio-cardoner.com
"When you stop falling you will be in heaven but when you stop getting up
you will be in hell." -- David Torkington

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