Klarinet Archive - Posting 000438.txt from 2004/03

From: ormondtoby@------.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Did I read Ormondtoby Montoya correctly.
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 13:35:29 -0500

Dan=A0Leeson wrote:

> but it stuck in my craw. And I want to come
> back to it. What Ormondtoby suggests (or
> what I think he is suggesting) is a common
> belief among contemporary players, namely
> that the players of the late 18th century were
> so burdened with physical problems, or else
> were so dumb, that they couldn't play very
> well at all.

Dan, I promise you that I didn't intend to be demeaning.

"Mental inertia" is a fact of history in general, such as when early
scholars refused to accept evidence that Earth orbits around the sun -
instead of vice versa. Physicists decried relativity and quantum
mechanics at first. And so forth. I didn't intend my question as a
reflection on 18th century musicians in particular.

> I kind of sense [Ormond] offering this with a
> snarl of superiority on his face

Definitely not. With curiosity? Yes. With a snarl? Not at all!

In order to flesh out my question a bit, I was reading about Stadler a
couple of months ago, and the book stated repeatedly that early
clarinetists must have been virtuosos in order to play despite the
limits of early clarinets. The book went on to say that today's
"average" workaday clarinetists probably could not achieve the same
results because they've never had a need to do so.

This was the context that prompted my question.

> Tony Pay is an example. He plays a clarinet
> not significantly different from that played by
> Anton Stadler, and to hear him play it is a
> grand pleasure.

I have attended one of Tony's concerts, and I agree about his music.
But again to flesh out the context of my question: Tony spoke to the
audience before he played, and he explained that new facts have been
discovered since Tony's instrument was built. It would be
intellectually lazy not to wonder what the effects of these differences
may be?

As another example, I read somewhere that Stradivarius's violins were
amazing for their time, but the finest of modern instruments play better
(whatever "better" means). How about clarinet's n Mozart's time?
Could craftsmen bore a clarinet as accurately as modern equipment can,
or undercut the holes as well? Or did they even undercut the holes at
all? And so forth?

I definitely was *not* saying that they couldn't. I was asking.

> The very idea of "We know so much more
> today ..." when we play this or that period of
> music is nothing more than a pile of arrogant
> crapulosum!!

Without intending to start a war, and based on what I have read, it
seems to me that modern instruments are better in some regards than the
early ones were ??? This isn't to say that the finest musicians of
those days couldn't overcome the difficulties, and in fact perhaps they
were better musicians than because they did overcome difficulties that
we don't face today ???

Again, Dan, any hints of condescension or snarling were not intended.

And in case it wasn't clear, I was using the word "stuffy" in the sense
of Bb with the register key being a "stuffy" note on a Bb clarinet. I
did not mean "stuffy" in the sense of an inferior performer.