Klarinet Archive - Posting 000065.txt from 2004/06

From: Robert Howe <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Gershwin Glissando
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 11:25:37 -0400

> I've read more than once that this (just a scale) is the way Gershwin
> intended it - that the first actual glissando treatment of the Rhapsody
> opening originated half tongue-in-cheek (not literally) as the principal
> clarinetist in the Whiteman orchestra (I forget his name at the moment) was
> fooling with it at a rehearsal for the premier. After all, the pianist can't
> do it that way... :-)
>
> Karl Krelove

It is an accepted statement in textbooks that Gershwin worked closely with
Russ Gorman, the remarkable multi-wind player of the Whiteman Orchestra, on
this opening. The piano's limitations are exactly that, and should not be
applied to the clarinet. See the preface to the MS holograph of the
Rhapsody in Blue, published about 1985 by MCA.

Robert Howe

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