Klarinet Archive - Posting 000529.txt from 2000/01

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bb Clarinet part for Mozart clarinet quintet?
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 20:01:01 -0500

Tony wrote:

> I think that the English musician was a viola player, and I remember
> one phrase: he said that Muehlfeld's sound was "a joke" as far as he was
> concerned.

Perhaps the same violist that appears in "Clarinet" by Jack Brymer, though
it doesn't seem to be that the violist thought of Muhlfeld's playing as a
joke. (I have this quote on a section concerning Vibrato on
http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet)

".........A reminiscence of no less a player than Muhlfeld himself seems to
suggest that the use of vibrato may have fallen out of fashion temporarily
after his day, to return after about thirty years. Just before World War II
a question was put to a very old viola player, sometime conductor of the
Duke of Devonshire's Orchestra, about the playing of Muhlfeld. The old man
had occasionally been called by Joachim to play in his quartet, and on
several occasions had played the Brahms Quintet with the great Muhlfeld. Of
the clarinetist's playing he was most enthusiastic, saying that three things
mainly stuck in his memory. 'He used two clarinets, A and Bb, for the slow
movement, to simplify the gypsy section; he had a fiery technique with a
warm tone -- and a big vibrato.' Asked again by a startled questioner if he
didn't mean to say 'rubato' the old man looked puzzled. 'No' he said,
'vibrato -- much more than Joachim, and as much as the cellist.'"

Mark C.

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