Klarinet Archive - Posting 000820.txt from 2002/11

From: Tom.Henson@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Sabine Meyer Concert
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:00:48 -0500

Dear List,

Some list members from the Houston area and myself attended the concert this
last Friday night by Sabine Meyer, which also featured Gidon Kremer on
violin, and Oleg Maisenberg on piano.

There was a last minute change in the repertoire resulting in the following
being played:

Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5 (1919) by Alban Berg

Phantasy for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 (1949) by Arnold Schoenberg

Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7 (1919) by Anton Webern

Suite from L'Histoire du Soldat (1919) by Igor Stravinsky

First Rhapsody for Clarinet and Piano (1910) by Claude Debussy

Sonata (for piano and violin) by Maurice Ravel

Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano (1939) by Bela Bartok

The live performance of these works was a rare treat, even considering that
they are contemporary works. Prior to the concert, I had not heard any of
them live, and only several on recordings, so I really did not know what to
expect.

The announcer for the concert told us that we were in for a very rare treat
and that she considered the performance by these three musicians "historic."
After hearing them, I agree.

The title of the concert series was "Masters of a Century." She said that
this was not only true of the composers who wrote these works, but of the
performers themselves. After hearing them, I also agree.

I had not heard of Gidon Kremer or Oleg Maisenberg before attending the
concert, but I will never forget them.

The shear virtuosity of their performances was awe inspiring, and needless
to say, we were all on a natural high afterwards when we adjourned to drinks
and discussion across the street after the concert.

Several of us had front row center seats and this afforded an extremely
close view of all performers in action. Of particular interest of course was
Sabine Meyer. I had read on this list that she tended to have an animated
stage presence while performing. I can confirm this. I had also read that
some people felt distracted by this movement. I can understand why, but I
did not personally feel this to be the case. Having no way to compare this
performance with any others, I can not begin to compare to what degree her
movement was the same or different.

I will say that Sabine Meyer has a very deliberate and practiced stage
presence. Her mannerism, along with the other two musicians each exuded an
energy and image to the audience in relation to the music being played. She
would at times pull her left (upper) hand away from the clarinet at the very
end of a phrase, almost as if imitating the plucking of a violin sting. I do
not remember her moving her arms in an up and down motion to any great
degree which has been likened to a chicken dance by some. I did not observe
this type of movement.

Generally, she did not stand very close to the music stand, which afforded
her more room for movement on stage. All three of them used music, but it
did appear that they had most of it memorized when they would close their
eyes to play certain passages expressively. The violinist on the other hand,
stood right up next to the music stand and did not move his feet around a
lot, some, but not a lot. He seemed to be from the school where you do not
move around a great deal while playing. His facial expression and the
intensity of it was a revelation though, like a window to his soul.

I can see why some would criticize Sabine Meyer for her stage presence. My
wife, who is a vocalist and has performed opera, said it reminded her of
what she was taught for opera stage presence and the way that your body
communicates to the audience through hand gestures and such, as well as what
you are singing.

I feel that her stage presence helped set the tone of the piece being
played, and also gave a clue to the audience of what she was feeling, so I
see it as a good thing and was never distracted by it.

In any event, her movement never detracted or reduced her incredible
musicianship in any way. I can report that she sounds even better live than
on her recordings. All of us were awe inspired by her skill and technical
ability. She also has some of the best staccato articulation that I have
ever heard. Her tone was also something to behold. My wife commented on her
ability to mimic the piano and violin in her playing and this is true. The
three of them performed as if they had been doing it for years. They were
perfectly in sync with each other in spite of the fact that they showed
little outward sign that they were following each other's cues.

A surprise to me was the fact that Sabine Meyer was using a standard metal
ligature and not a German string one. This kind of surprised me, It looked
similar to an inverted Bonade, but the screws were on the left side of the
mouthpiece and not on the right as the inverted Bonade. It looked worn and
had a brassy color.

The works that were performed opened up a window of understanding for me of
contemporary music. I have never been a huge fan of some of the contemporary
music literature, but gained more respect for it by hearing it performed on
this level. It is no doubt difficult to play, and very difficult to play in
a musical way. I think one of my favorite of the evening was the Stravinsky
piece. On this piece, I was as inspired by the violin part as well as the
clarinet. The bowing technique used by Gidon Kremer was mesmerizing. I came
away with a desire to perform some of these works and hope someday that I
can.

The trio of musicians had conveyed to the concert host before the
performance that they wanted to skip the VIP reception after the concert
because they were quite tired and didn't feel up to it. Needless to say, we
were all hoping they would change their minds.

They did. The concert went so well, and the musicians themselves enjoyed it
so much that they found the energy to attend for about 30 minutes.

A couple of list members and myself spent about 10 minutes talking to Sabine
at the reception and asking questions. Here is some of the questions as her
answers.

She first commented that all three of them thought the acoustics of the
concert hall was very good and that they enjoyed playing there. She really
like the sound that the hall had and it helped her perform better.

On the question of her using a metal ligature vs. string: She told us that
she still uses string, but uses the metal ligature now just as much and
there was not any particular reason why she choose a metal ligature for that
night's performance.

My thought is that it could have been due to her switching between her Bb
and A clarinets, although I do not know how stable a string ligature is when
moving the mouthpiece around from one to another.

On the question of what brand of metal ligature that she used: She gave us a
puzzled look at first and this could be due to her knowledge of English (her
English by the way is pretty good as far as I could tell). She told us that
it was the ligature that came with her clarinet, a Wurlitzer ligature.

This also answered and confirmed out next question on what brand of clarinet
she uses. This is fairly common knowledge so it came as no surprise. Some of
you might be "shocked" that she actually used the ligature that came with
the clarinet and not some fancy aftermarket one.

My next question was what kind of mouthpiece she used, but I got distracted
and forgot to bring it back up. I believe she also uses, "shock", a
Wurlitzer mouthpiece. I never got around to asking her what brand of reed
she used.

This also brought up the Oehler system vs. Boehm system. I asked her if she
had ever played a reform Boehm clarinet and she said yes, she had. She also
said that she has several students who play on reform Boehm clarinets. She
said that she thought it was easier to go from knowing a Boehm system to an
Oehler system, than from an Oehler to a Boehm.

On the question of her embouchure, does she use a double lip: She laughed
and said maybe 100 years ago. By the way, for anyone that has seen Sabine
Meyer in person, her embouchure is very striking. She takes quite a bit of
the mouthpiece into her mouth and the corners of her mouth are so strong
that it look like she has two dimples on each side of her mouth when
playing. At times, the air pressure in her mouth is to the point of it
bulging her cheeks out slightly as if using circular breathing even though
she was not using it. Also, her chin is anything but flat. She plays with
her chin bunched up toward the bottom lip, the reason I thought she might be
using a double lip embouchure in the first place. So, in general, you would
not use her embouchure as a typical example of what you wanted a beginner to
emulate.

This also brings up another point that I wanted to make, and that we all
observed that her finger position at times was very high, even some fingers
pointing straight up in the air. Now this was noticed on slow legato
passages, but when playing quickly they would be down close to the keys.
Again, not something you would want to show as an example of the correct
finger position.

They only conclusion we all made: none of us felt any of these perceived
"differences" appeared to affect her playing one bit. Therefore, each person
must reach a place where they take all of their training and modify it to a
degree to their own particular needs. This was openly discussed between
myself, my clarinet teacher (who was there with us at the concert), and
another clarinet teacher on this list also in attendance.

Is this something you would teach a beginner, most likely not. But as we
have all discussed many times on this list before, each and every one of us
is unique and the way that we play is unique. What works for some will not
work for others, and so forth.

Sabine Meyer is currently teaching clarinet at a university in Lubeck,
Germany which is near Hamburg. I asked her if she had worked with Julian
Bliss yet. I had trouble understanding her English, but it sounded like
either he had already studied with her or would be in the near future (she
had trouble with the proper English verb tense). She said it was only for
one semester and that he would come from Hamburg to his lessons.

We gratefully thanked her for her time and patience in answering our
questions and thanked her for sharing a truly great performance, and with
that excused ourselves. I really feel that this experience will be something
that I will remember a long, long time. I encourage anyone that has the
opportunity to listen to a live performance of musicians of this caliber,
regardless of who they are, or what instrument they play. You will be
greatly rewarded by the experience and will learn a great deal from it as a
fellow musician.

As always, this commentary is based upon opinion, and as such is subjective
in nature.

Thanks

Tom Henson

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