Klarinet Archive - Posting 001336.txt from 2000/05

From: MVinquist@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Re: Who is the clarinettist?
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 08:14:02 -0400

When I studied with Alex Williams, he told me that he was the principal in
the NBC Symphony during its final few years and that he played the solo in
the Pines of Rome broadcast that was released on LP (and has since been
released on CD).

He doesn't play very softly on the LP either, but the infamous Studio 8H from
which the orchestra broadcast was extremely dead, and the engineering was
well below the standards of the time. I like his playing of the solo on the
LP. He suspends time, as in a garden at night, with not a breath of air
moving, and the unseen nightingale begins to sing. It doesn't bother me that
he gets louder later on in the solo. At that point, it's a clarinet solo in
duet with a recording of the actual bird, and his low register sound is
wonderfully warm (dare I say "dark"?) and resonant.

This is certainly not the only way to play the solo. Those of us ancient
enough to have been at the Clarinet Congress at Oberlin will remember Anthony
Gigliotti's master class, in which he played the solo like a golden thread,
impossibly soft yet carrying to the back of a large, dead hall.

Toscanini of course knew Respighi and was active when The Pines of Rome was
written. (I think he premiered Roman Festivals.) If anybody knew how the
piece goes, it was Toscanini. The clarinet solo segues into a flute solo,
which, on the Toscanini LP, is louder than you would think it possible for a
flute to play. (John Wummer, I think.)

The oboist is pretty definitely Paolo Renzi. He could play anything, but
could be painfully out of tune. (Listen to the reissue of the Beethoven 6th,
for example.) I asked Josef Marx why Toscanini tolerated such out of tune
playing in an orchestra with such high standards of virtuosity. He told me
that Toscanini had adored Renzi's playing years before in Italy and had
demanded that he be brought over to play in the NBC Symphony. When it turned
out that Renzi was past his prime, Toscanini kept him on because he didn't
want to admit he had made a mistake.

Best regards.

Ken Shaw

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