Klarinet Archive - Posting 000361.txt from 2004/05

From: <tony-w@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Solo Performance announcement
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 05:40:26 -0400

From: <GrabnerWG@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 6:45 PM
Subject: [kl] Solo Performance announcement

> This coming Sunday, May 23, I will be appearing with the newly formed
> Sinfonietta Arts Chamber Orchestra.
> Many thanks to people who suggested repertoire. I finally settled on two
> movements from the Weber Quintet, arranged for clarinet and string
orchestra. I'll
> be playing the Fantasia (second) and the Rondo (fourth movement). Sorry,
Dan,
> I know you don't like the piece, but in this form it makes an effective
> mini-concerto.

Very interesting orchestra Walter. Hope the Weber works out well for you. I
heard the Baermann quintet in a similar setting (arr. for strings) on BBC
yesterday. I was travelling and I missed the announcement, pre-performance.
I only know the Adagio 2nd Movt, so didn`t recognise what it was until the
2nd movt had started. Listening to the 1st movt and trying to place what it
was, I came up with a bad guess that it was some obscure composer`s attempt
at a one movement solo de concours form - lots of virtuoso stuff without
much intellectual development.Then the 2nd movt started and I guessed
wrongly again that it must be a concerto, and not solo do concours. After
the first few bars into the Adagio, I recognised this section. The 3rd movt
came and went without stirring me too much, and I came to finally know what
it was all about at the end of the performance - a CD as far as I could
tell. I don`t know who the soloist was, he/she was very fluent, but I came
across this site today:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Playlist?source=WGMS&date=200404081827
And I see that other string arr. are also on this CD.
In the same broadcast, Michael Collins played the Mozart concerto on what
was announced as his new bassett clarinet. The orchestra was Scottish (BBC?
or National?) On my car radio the sound of the clarinet was quite harsh. I
don`t possess a bassett cl. and never having even heard a bassett live, I
would not want to criticise a player of his calibre. It could be that the
mics were badly placed, but it almost sounded as tho` he was playing on a
very soft reed, which didn`t appear to allow him to refine his tone much -
similar to how I`ve observed de Peyer to play at times. (Maybe de Peyer
had bad mics - never seen him play). I would hope then,
that this was a BBC effort and not a commercial CD. We`re all only human
ain`t we?

I can remember 2 or 3 years ago when an Australian player wanted to play the
Mozart concerto as a 'quintet' as he didn`t have the amount of strings or
other instruments to hand, deep in the outback. He asked for advice, I
looked thru` the score and discovered that it would indeed play perfectly as
a quintet with just a small alteration - 3 or 4 bars to the horns. I can`t
remember whether he went ahead with this idea. But as we can see, there are
a lot of arrangements of the big works becoming more frequent, even on CD.
I would think Dan may not be too pleased - I`m not sure I agree with this
amount of 'messing about' myself, but we are not in a position to stop it
are we? Do we want to stop it? Do we have to go with the flow? It`s
probably slightly more aesthetic to do it Walter`s way - as a string
orchestra arr. is not going to sway too far away from the original - no
alterations being necessary.

End with a slightly edgy remark/question aimed at Walter. Are you going to
play it on a Leblanc LL? Only joking Walter. Best of luck.
Tony W.

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