Klarinet Archive - Posting 001365.txt from 2000/12

From: "Kenneth Wolman" <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Kell and Mozart
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2000 16:51:00 -0500

> From: avrham galper [mailto:agalper@-----.com]
> Reginal Kell and Mozart
>
> I have an old set of 78's with Kell playing the Mozart Concerto. He did
> this in 1937 with Malcolm Sergeant conducting.
>
> The tone is not dark or bright. Just a beautiful singing tone.
>
> A lot of rubatos but always with taste.
>
> The way he plays the concerto reminds one of a Mozart artist piano
> player playing one of the piano concertos.
>
> It was very light and stylistic.
>
> Later he made some records of this in the USA but that was not like the
> first one.

One of my first clarinet recordings was an American Decca LP of Kell playing
K.622 (I believe Decca is now strictly a British label). It's around here
someplace, I just can't think of where or what shape it's in. It's probably
as shot to hell as Gigliotti's Weber Concertino because I wore both of them
out. I don't know if the Kell version Avrham's referring to is a transfer
of the 1937 rendition, or whether it's one of the recordings he made later.
I did not know enough at the time to tell whether it was idiosyncratic, just
that it was gorgeous and inspiring music-making. Kell on an offday was
probably better that most guys at the top of their form.

I also have Gigliotti's recording of the Mozart. I think he wrote that he
did this in two widely-spaced takes, with no prior warning, only because
Ormandy had him record the first movement in one shot--then months later, he
went through the 2nd and 3rd movements, also with no warning, in one take.
If this is so (and why should it not be?), it's astonishing. Of course,
Ormandy's idea of what a Mozart orchestra should sound like bears an odd
resemblance to how he'd play Anton Bruckner:-), but why complain with solo
work like that?

Ken

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