Klarinet Archive - Posting 000344.txt from 2001/04

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Cool Easter Gig
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 13:41:08 -0400

This weekend my wife & I had the coolest Easter gig -- we played
Mahler's Resurrection (Symphony #2) with a festival orchestra here is
Seattle Saturday night. The performance was broadcast on KING, our
local classical music station, on Sunday -- allowing us an almost
instant feedback for the assessment of Penalty Beers.

The experience was both moving, and relevant for the discussion I found
in my inbox this morning.

Oliver Seely posted about an

<<<. . . oboist I heard this morning in a near-flawlessly executed
performance of his wind quintet. He works as an engineer for a
well-known aerospace firm. I commented to him during a social gathering
one evening that more and more my chemistry professorship subsidizes my
musical activities. He laughed and said, Yeah, the XXXX company has
been subsidizing my oboe playing for years." Give that some thought if
you have a day job and from time to time feel guilty about all the
outside time you spend with your instrument.>>>

So true. As I turned the last page of my part, with the choir in full
voice and surrounded by some of my best friends blasting their brains
out (with good tone and in tune, of course), it occurred to me that
there was no place I would rather be, and nothing I would rather be
doing. =20

I feel no guilt at all -- not one whit.

Dan Leeson posted:

<<<More and more we see performing musicians making the presumption that
their experience gives them the authority to do almost anything they
wish. At the smallest level, that is the same brand of ego that says,
"I don't care if it says C clarinet. I'm a performer, not a truck
horse. I shall play it on whatever clarinet I chose." And with that
decision, made 1000 times a day worldwide by respected players, the
orchestral palette of sound undergoes a fundamental alteration. It is
nothing more or less than the production of music driven by economic and
physical considerations instead of musical ones.>>>

I agree with Dan about the C clarinet thing -- at least in certain
contexts -- which is a reversal of my earlier thinking on the subject.
I purchased a Noblet C a couple of years ago to play Strauss; it does
indeed have a different sound character than the larger horns. I didn't
play it on Saturday because I had the 4th part (all Eb); I lent it to
one of my best friends who used it to good effect.

OTOH, I have heard fantastic performances of Mahler where the C parts
were transposed. Last fall I heard Chicago play Mahler 5 -- Messrs.
Combs, Yeh and Smith didn't use Cs, but did use Oehler system horns.

Anyway, after the performance I went for beers, and (as usual) ended up
quaffing a brew or two with the trumpet players. I brought up the
subject of using an instrument in the "intended" key; they looked at me
as if I were a heroin addict. Apparently, the now-"standard" orchestral
trumpet setup of a C trumpet with a large diameter mouthpiece was not
universally used until the middle of the 20th century. Mahler's parts
are for (high) trumpet in F, which no one has any more and, according to
my beer-hazed compatriots, probably didn't use when the piece was
written.

Other than the occasional use of rotary-valve trumpets, there seems to
be a lot less concern for authenticity by brass players, what with
triple-compensating high descant horns and all that. One of my friends
summed it up: "The trumpet" he stated, "is a tube -- you use what
sounds the best."

Oh, my -- I'm afraid that I agree with that, too.

kjf

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