Klarinet Archive - Posting 000206.txt from 2003/12

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: 10 worst
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 10:16:36 -0500

Mark Charette wrote:

> Dan's list (from David Blumberg's posting from 1999 at
> http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1999/09/000690.txt
>
> 1. Unaccompanied Clarinet - Luigi Arditi 3 Valses de Salon - Schott Publ.
> 2. Clarinet Sonata by a Famous Composer - Felix Mendelssohn Sonata ( G.
> Schirmer Publ.)
> 3. Most Pretentious Trio Arrangement - Richard Wagner - Die Meistersinger
> for Clarinet Violin Piano - Friedlander arr. (Schott publ.)
> 4. Funniest Clarinet Quartet - James Waterson Grand Quartet for 4
> Clarinets
> (Southern Music)
> 5. Piano / Wind Quintet by an Aristocratic, Dead, Left-Handed Composer who
> could have doubled as a Naval Officer when required - Nicolai
> Rimsky-Korsakov Quintet in Bb (International Publ.)
> 6. Wind Octet - Georg Druschetsky - Six Partitas (Doblinger Publ.)
> 7. Ten Instruments - Geore Enesco - Dixtour (Salabert Publ.)
> 8. Solo Clarinet and Band - Rimsky Korsakov - Concerto (Omega Publ.)
> 9. Least Favorite Cadenza - Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld -
> (everybody publishes it)
> 10. Least Favorite Free-style Work - a 3 way tie
> Mozart - Cassation (Southern)
> Barrington - Nip and Tuc (Fischer Publ.)
> Khachaturian Trio (Leeds Publ)
>
You mean that somebody is going to play all this crap at one recital??
The audience might rebel and kill him/her.

I remember the Luigi Arditi pieces because I used to play them at
Italian feasts in Lodi, New Jersey. And when I did, Italian mothers
would parade their daughters in front of the bandstand, apparently
because I had, by the brilliance of my playing, become a prospective
bridegroom. If only I had parted my hair in the middle like Rudolph
Valentino!! The paraded girls all had mustaches and B.O. None of them
looked like Sophia Loren, unfortunately. Also, in that community, a bust
size less thatn 42 DD was unheard of. Sometimes two grown sons were
needed to hold the woman upright.

You were wise not to look at those women because a glance showing the
slightest amount of interest would immediately be intepreted by the
father as an offense against the family honor. Then you had to marry
the mustachioed beauty or be garrotted.

I advertised myself as the best left-handed, blind Arditi performer in
America. Everybody wanted me to play "Il Baccio," a romantic piece of
unadulterated nausea but beloved by the mothers of the mustachioed
beauties. "Questo uomo romantico!!," they would say, raising a
suggestive eyebrow or two.

Ah, sweet memories. Sometime I must speak of my polka playing career.
It was glorious. Polish girls are much more interesting, but only if you
speak Polish, and I was the fastest Clarinet Polka performer in all of
New England. THe mothers would throw their nubile daughters at me.

But I kept my honor.

--
Dan Leeson
leeson0@-----.net

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