Klarinet Archive - Posting 001015.txt from 2000/10

From: "Michael Bryant" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: [kl] GBS and the clarinet et al - was Critics (long post)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 03:47:38 -0400

1) CLARINET QUINTET 11 May 1892 Only the other day I remarked that I was
sure to come across Brahms' new clarionet quintet sooner or later. And, sure
enough, my fate overtook me last week at Mr G. Glinton's Wind Concert at
Steinway Hall. I shall not attempt to describe this latest exploit of the
Leviathan Maunderer. It surpassed my utmost expectations: I never heard such
a work in my life. Brahms' enormous gift of music is paralleled by nothing
on earth but Mr Gladstone's gift of words: it is a verbosity which outfaces
its own commonplaceness by dint of sheer magnitude. The first movement of
the quintet is the best; and had the string players been on sufficiently
easy terms with it, they might have softened it and given effect to its
occasional sentimental excursions into dreamland. Unluckily they were all
preoccupied with the difficulty of keeping together; and they were led by a
violinist whose bold, free, slashing style, though useful in a general way,
does more harm than good when the strings need to be touched with great
tenderness and sensitiveness.
Mr Clinton played the clarionet part with scrupulous care, but without
giving any clue to his private view of the work, which, though it shews off
the compass and contrasts the registers of the instrument in the usual way,
contains none of the haunting phrases which Weber, for instance, was able to
find for the expression of its idiosyncrasy. The presto of the third
movement is a ridiculously dismal version of a lately popular hornpipe. I
first heard it at the pantomime which was produced at Her Majesty's Theatre
a few years ago; and I have always supposed it to be a composition of Mr
Solomon's. Anyhow, the street-pianos went through an epidemic of it; and it
certainly deserved a merrier fate than burying alive in a Brahms quintet.

Quite charming, after the quintet, was Thuille's elegant and well-written
sextet
for wood, wind, horn, and pianoforte, the slow movement of which begins
as if the horn had forgotten itself and were absently wandering into
'See the Conq'ring Hero'. Messrs Griffiths, Clinton, Malsch, Borsdorf,
Wotton junior, and Oscar Beringer were the executants.

-----------

2) The Star, 3 March I890 : On Friday evening last I went to the Wind
Instrument Society's concert at the Royal Academy of Music in Tenterden
Street. Having only just heard of the affair from an acquaintance, I had no
ticket. The concert, as usual, had been kept dark from me: Bassetto the
Incorruptible knows too much to be welcome to any but the greatest artists.
I therefore presented myself at the doors for admission on payment as a
casual amateur. Apparently the wildest imaginings of the Wind Instrument
Society had not reached to such a contingency as a Londoner offering money
at the doors to hear classical chamber music played upon bassoons,
clarionets, and horns; for I was told that it was impossible to entertain my
application, as the building had no license. I suggested sending out for a
license; but this, for some technical reason, could not be done. I offered
to dispense with the license; but that, they said, would expose them to
penal servitude. Perceiving by this that it was a mere question of breaking
the law, I . insisted on the secretary accompanying me to the residence of a
distinguished Q.C. [lawyer] in the neighbourhood, and ascertaining from him
how to do
it. The Q.C. said that if I handed the secretary ; five shillings at the
door in consideration of being admitted to the concert, that would be
illegal. But if I bought a ticket from him in the street, that would be
legal. Or if I presented him with five shillings in remembrance of his last
birthday, and he gave me a free admission in celebration of my silver
wedding, that would be legal. Or if we broke the law without witnesses and
were prepared to perjure ourselves if questioned afterwards (which seemed to
me the most natural way), then nothing could happen to us.
I cannot without breach of faith explain which course we adopted: suffice it
that I was present at the concert. The first item, a septet in E flat, which
is, for Beethoven, a tea gardens sort of composition, was not made the best
of. Mr Clinton led the first movement, which should be brisk and crisp,
slowly and laboriously. The bassoons were rough and ready; the horns rough
and not always ready. On the whole, with such artists the performance ought
to have been several shades finer. The Spohr septet, a shining river of
commonplaces, plagiarisms, and reminiscences, went more smoothly; but then
the fiddle, 'cello and piano had a hand in that. The piano, by the bye, was
played by Mr Septimus Webbe, who, though in his earliest manhood, has, if I
mistake not, been a notable player for at least fourteen years past. What a
fortune he would have made had the Hofmann-Hegner boom [sic ?] happened when
he was
in his prime at eight! One movement of an octet by the late, high!y
respectable Franz Lachner was enough for me. I am much afraid that Wagner's
pithy description of him in Ueber das Dirigiren will survive all the
obituary notices that were so complimentary to him.

--------------------

3) 1 August 1894: In judging the wood wind I am on less certain ground,
since the tone is so greatly affected by the way in which the reed is cut. I
have heard in the street what I supposed to be an execrable cracked cornet,
and on coming round the corner have found an old man playing a clarinet with
an old slack reed as easy for his feeble jaws as the reed one cuts for a
child in a cornfield. The tone produced by such ancient men and that
produced by Lazarus in his best days (which was, I think, purer, if less
rich, than Muhlfeld's) mark the two poles of my experience of
clarinet-playing; and I have always found that in German orchestras the
standard tone leans more to the man in the street than to Lazarus.
Unfortunately, I am not expert enough to discriminate confidently between
the difference due to the cutting of the reed and that due to the quality of
the instrument; but except in the case of unusually fine players, who
generally take the first chance of coming to England and settling here, the
German wood wind player is content with a cheaper tone than the English one;
and Bayreuth is no exception to this rule. The oboe there is as reedy as the
cor anglais is here. The strings, as compared with ours, are deficient in
power and richness; and even in the case of the horns, which we somehow or
other cannot play, whilst the Germans can, the tone is much rougher and more
nearly allied to that of the Alpine cowhorn than what may be called the
standard tone here.

-----------------------

4) 16 March 1892: For some years past the Wind Instrument Society has been
giving concerts for the performance of chamber music for wind instruments,
which generally proves attractive whenever it is tried at the Popular
Concerts. Last year difficulties arose between the Society and the little
group of players known as "Clinton's wind-quintet," consisting of Mr G. A.
Clinton, the well-known clarinettist, Mr Borsdorff (horn), Mr Malsch (oboe),
Mr Griffiths (flute), and MrThomas Wotton (bassoon). Preparation for the
Society's performances cost these gentlemen so much time that, to secure an
adequate return, they found it necessary to stipulate that they should be
engaged for all the concerts.
The Society, naturally wishing to keep its platform open to other
wind-instruments players, demurred, and offered Mr Clinton four concerts out
of six. The quarrel was a pretty one, as both parties were perfectly
reasonable in their demands. Mr Clinton, for concerts enough to make it
worth his while to keep his quintet in harness; and the Society, for freedom
to engage what artists it pleased at its own concerts. Finally, they agreed
to differ; and Mr Clinton has now resolved to give concerts on his own
account at Steinway Hall. The first of these was announced for Tuesday the
8th; and I have no doubt it duly and successfully came off. The program
included Hummel's septet and Spohr's nonet, pretty works both of them, but
no longer magnetic enough to draw me to Steinway Hall in such an abominable
east wind as prevailed on the 8th. On April the 6th, when Mozart's
clarionet trio in E flat will be on the bill, and on May 3rd, when there
will be a Beethoven serenade, not to mention some new works at both
concerts, I shall perhaps venture. Meanwhile the Wind Instrument Society's
concerts are in full swing at the Royal Academy of Music, mostly on Friday
nights, when it is quite impossible for me to attend them.
It is important that both enterprises should receive sufficient support to
keep them going, for the sake of the opportunities they afford for turning
mere bandsmen into artists. At present the dearth of first-rate wind-players
is such that important concerts and rehearsals may be made impracticable by
the pre-engagement of two or three players - a ridiculous state of things in
a city like London. But men will not, as a rule, face the labour of
acquiring extra skill unless there is extra credit and remuneration to be
got for it; and there will always be a marked difference between the
orchestral routine hand and the artist who has occasionally to step out from
the rank-and-file before an audience and acquit himself of a difficult task
with all the responsibility and prominence of a soloist. The multiplication
of concerts at which this occurs means the multiplication of wind-players of
the class of (to name veterans alone) Lazarus and the elder Wotton.

---------------------------

5) 18 November 1891 With keyed wind-instruments it is often said that a
change so great as that from Philharmonic to French [pitch] is impossible;
and as first-rate instruments of this class are quite as dear as the best
cottage pianofortes, the opposition of the players to any change involving
the purchase of new instruments might be expected to be very strong, and to
be counterbalanced by a corresponding anxiety on the part of the
manufacturers to promote the change. Both players and manufacturers seem,
however, to be so little concerned about the matter that I am emboldened to
relate my earliest experience of the alleged impossibility of French pitch
for the wood wind. When I was a small boy I had a sort of family interest in
a casual operatic performance, at which the singers and the conductor very
much wanted French pitch. The band, though extremely sympathetic and
obliging, pointed out that this could not be. The strings would have been
only too happy; the brass could have managed at a pinch; there was no
question about the alacrity of the drum in sinking; and the flute, oboe, and
bassoon did not deny that they could do something to meet the conductor's
views.

But the clarinet was the difficulty. It was, they all said, a universally
admitted fact, familiar alike to the musician and the physicist, that the
pitch of a clarinet is an unalterable and eternal natural phenomenon. And
the more the poor conductor struck his "diapason normal" tuning-fork at the
beginning of the first rehearsal, the more the clarinettist (there was but
one)
blew a melancholy response . nearly a half a tone sharp to it.
So the conductor sighed; and the rehearsal went forward
at Philharmonic pitch. That evening the conductor privately interviewed the
clarinettist. He suggested that if the instrument could be altered (for the
occasion only) at a cost of, say, a guinea, he would willingly place that
sum in the artist's hands for the purpose. A pause ensued, during which the
clarinettist steadfastly and solemnly contemplated the conductor, and the
conductor, with equal gravity, contemplated the clarinettist back again.
Then the guinea changed hands; and the twain parted.

----------------------

Just a sample: not completely unreliable,
due to a tendency to exaggerate and amplify
but very entertaining.

MB

_____
Michael Bryant, Michael@-----.uk
Tel (messages 24hrs) & Fax by request
+44 (0) 20 8390 3236
http://www.bryant14.demon.co.uk
Rosewood Publications url:
http://freespace.virgin.net/s.westmeath
and http://www.rosewoodpublications.co.uk

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