Klarinet Archive - Posting 000032.txt from 2004/05

From: "David McClune" <dmcclune@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] DePeyer (was: who *IS* too European?)
Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 22:34:26 -0400

Likewise,

In 1976 I had a college class which spent a few days in NYC. We arrived
by van after a 10 hour drive, I checked the coucert schedules and across
the street 30 minutes later, was a DePeyer chamber recital. I was an
impressionable college junior, but it was still a wonderful concert
which I remember to this day. The other students went to party and I
headed for the recital. Out of that group...I am the only one still in
music, go figure!

Dr. David McClune
Professor of Woodwinds
Director of Bands
Union University-1862
1050 Union University Drive
Jackson, TN 38305

Office-731-661-5294
dmcclune@-----.edu
www.mcclunemouthpiece.com
>>> RichChPlay@-----.com 05/02/04 21:03 PM >>>
>I think Stoltzman is a very good Clarinetist. I can't say the same for
>De Peyer. Looking back at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
>Selecting him as their former Clarinetist I think "what the hell were
>they thinking"?
(SNIP of verbal trashing of another clarinetist)
>
>David Blumberg
>
on 5/2/04 7:15 AM, Matthew Lloyd wrote:
>
>Speaking as a European, I have to say that over the years I have found
>De Peyer's Mozart ultimately the most satisfactory. He doesn't, of
>course, use a basset clarinet (unless he has re-recorded it recently)
>but ultimately (and I know I will have Dan hurling Pizza at me for
>saying this) I don't think that is the end of the world.
>
>I am not - of course - putting this forward as any sort of truth but
>merely to show that we don't all have the same views.....

At the time DePeyer was invited to become the clarinetist for the
Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center, he probably had the largest active
catalog of chamber music recordings of any clarinetist through his
membership in the Melos Ensemble. Thus, it doesn't seem to me to be such

a stretch that CMSLC would be interested to have DePeyer as a member.

Like Matthew, I like DePeyer's recording of the Mozart Concerto, made
with London Symphony(?) conducted by Peter Maag. Especially in the last

movement, his playing imparts a dance-like feeling that is missing in
most other recordings. Since the Basset Clarinet version of the concerto

only became widely known to performers in the late 1960's, the fact that

DePeyer's recording uses a regular A clarinet can't really be held
against him, IMO. When I'm recommending recordings to students studying
the Mozart Concerto, this is one of the recordings I suggest.

DePeyer's recordings with the Melos Ensemble opened my eyes as a young
American player to the possibility that 1.) there was more than one
sound
("the one true sound") that could be gotten from a clarinet in playing
classical music, and 2.) that blend and balance with string and other
wind players was musically desirable and possible, if one was willing to

be flexible about one's sound. For me it was a valuable lesson at an
impressionable age.

I heard DePeyer play several times at the Denver Clarinet Festival, and
it was always musically instructive. Taking his career as a whole, to
the
extent that I know it, I have nothing but respect for him, as a musician

and a clarinetist.

David

David Niethamer
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org