Klarinet Archive - Posting 000103.txt from 2000/11

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Jon Manasse's recording of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:57:13 -0500

Anne, I studied with David Weber in NY as far back as 1948 and then went
back to him in 1956. I also played those same long tones that you
described hoping that it would make me sound like him.

David changed as he got older. As a younger man (and provided that one
did not play so very well as to threaten him), he was not so
cantankerous. And he could not have been more kind to me, but he knew
at once that I would never be a threat to him, so maybe it is not a good
comparison.

The late Alan Balter also studied with David, though many years after me
and always spoke highly of David, who helped Alan get his first
important job. And Alan would have been a threat to David, so maybe my
characterization was flawed.

But going throughout the NY musician's scene were rumors that David had
become unable to control his anger and sarcasm, even when it was in his
own best interest to control those two dragons. Some of the very best
players in NY did not want to work with him.

Beyond this brief description, I would want to speak with you privately
on these things. When David became 80, I sent him a letter reminding
him of my study with him when I was 16, and he called me. We chatted
amiable for a long time.

But as I said, I was never a threat to him (or to very many people, for
that matter).

One of the things for which David liked me was that I was fluent in
Yiddish. There were damn few kids of 16 in 1948 who could make that
claim. David was also completely fluent in Yiddish and he would be
hired to play the NY Yiddish radio station, WEVD. Then he would play
this or that and even be interviewed in Yiddish. That may be why he
remembered me. We often told each other Yiddish jokes.

--
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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