Klarinet Archive - Posting 000132.txt from 2002/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] on the use of metaphor
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 19:06:57 -0500

On Sat, 2 Nov 2002 16:11:07 -0700, wsemple@-----.com said:

> The first Quintet I ever heard was a recording of Reginald Kell in the
> 1950's. So I have been enamored of the "English style," if one can be
> so called, all of my life.

I was myself an admirer, from a very early age -- 9 or 10, say -- of
Reginald Kell. (I met Kell at around the age of 12, but didn't derive a
great deal of benefit from it. I was simply overawed.)

But what I want to say is: something that's almost always worth arguing
against is, *generalisation*. I don't think of Kell as representative
of anything like an 'English Style', because very few English players
actually did anything like what he did.

And I think that if you look at our previous discussion about 'relative
importance' of bits of the clarinet/player system from that perspective,
I think you may see that what I was doing was to argue against the idea
that one bit of that system can be sensibly said to be 'more important'
than another, *IN GENERAL*.

Of course, one bit of the clarinet system may be more important than
another *in particular circumstances*. It's just that, because
everything interacts with everything else in a complicated way, we need
to be clear about the details of the particular situation before we can
say that anything is important, or go on to say anything useful about
what we should do about that important thing.

That's why I resist the generalisation, 'It gets less important as you
go down'; because it's very often -- much too often -- NOT TRUE. The
clarinet is more complicated than that.

I also resist the generalisation, 'Kell represents an English Style',
because it seems to me that it captures very little of what English
clarinet players did then, or now do.

I remember saying to Karl Leister that we English players admired many
of the qualities of German playing, in particular the sound that he,
Leister, made.

He was horrified. "But, *I* am not a German clarinet player!" he said.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... DANGER! DANGER! Computer Store Ahead, Hide Wallet.

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