Klarinet Archive - Posting 000585.txt from 2002/11

From: "Russell Harlow" <lharlow@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] McLane's Description of His Sound
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:56:53 -0500

Perhaps McLanes words were not so much a dicreption of his sound as ideal
qualities to strive for?

Some really fine recordings you can find of McLane are the Miaskovsky
symphony #21-Ravel Introduction and Allegro - Wieniawsky Violin Concerto #2
(clarinet cadenza between 1st and 2nd movements) with Elman and the
Robinhood Dell Orch, Hillsberg conducting. The Brahms Trio was not recorded
very well so you will hear a better represenation with these other
perofmances.

I don't feel it is a matter of being exact, but instead a way to express the
possibility of emotional content or an emotion in the quality in ones'sound.
That way, the intellectual technique-embouchure, breathing, fingers, etc.
can become the servants of an emotional connection with metaphor or
emotional use of words - a synthesis perhaps of two functions of the brain?

There are two other recordings of Hamelim that are well worth hearing with
Koussevitsky and Boston: Tchaikovsky symphony #6 - Victor M-85 and Beethoven
symphony #6 - Victor M-50 from 1929 and 1928.

The ear has the final say.
RH

----------
>From: CGBeale@-----.com
>To: klarinet@-----.org
>Subject: [kl] McLane's Description of His Sound
>Date: Tue, Nov 12, 2002, 8:30 PM
>

> Russell Harlow wrote:
>
> I asked David Weber recently how Ralph McLane spoke
> about sound and concept of sound. He told me that McLane
> ( said by many to have had one of the most beautiful of
> clarinet sounds) talked about "Gold" and "Silver" in the tone,
> it had to be like "Chocolat" you had to be able to reach up
> and touch the sound.
>
> In Reminiscences he wrote for the Grenadilla Society issue of McLane's
> recording of the Brahms Trio, David Weber also wrote:
>
> "He [McLane] would grab my arm sometimes as we were playing and he'd say,
> "You have to feel the tone; it has to grab. There has to be substance in the
> core. It has to be a wet, supple sound" (as opposed to dry and hard)."
>
> When I listen to McLane's recordings and compare his sound with some other
> clarinet sounds I've heard, I think I can understand why he used the words
> "grab", "substance in the core", "wet" and "supple". Given McLane's
> reputation for interpersonal skills I can imagine that he would have had some
> choice words for anyone who asked him to define in words precisely what he
> meant by those words. However, I suspect he could have demonstrated what he
> meant.
>
> Also, did you know that McLane's teacher, Gaston Hamelin, "...used a nasal,
> vibrato-clad quality of tone..."? Those are not my words but those of Pamela
> Weston which she penned for the September 2002 issue of The Clarinet
> magazine. It never occurred to me to use those words to describe Hamelin's
> performance of the Debussy Premier Rhapsodie, his only recording.
>
> Clarence Beale
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

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