Klarinet Archive - Posting 001099.txt from 2004/07

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] ClarinetFest 2004, day 4
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 16:43:47 -0400

On Saturday, July 24, my first stop was the “Feature Recital, 2005
ClarinetFest in Japan hosts.” Koichi Hamanaka and Kazuko Ninomiya began
the program with Joseph Pranzer’s “Trois Duos Concertantes,” Op. 1, for two
clarinets. Mr. Hamanaka then performed the premiere of Shin- ichiro Ikebe's
"Clarinet Solo." Another duet followed, again with Koichi Hamanaka and
Kazuko Ninomiya, performing Yasuo Sueyoshi's "Correspondence pour deux
clarinettes." The interpretations were more reserved than I prefer.
(However, I greatly prefer this conservative approach to the opposite
extreme of dipping and swooping and waggling or "stirring the cauldron"
with the clarinets so much that intonation suffers.) Although I admired
the skills of the performers, I wasn't wild about the choices of music.
Maybe there were depths to the music that I was incompetent to understand,
but up to this point in the program, the music sounded formulaic to me, as
I wrote in another thread a day or so ago. I was especially sorry that Mr.
Hamanaka, who seemed nervous, had put his enormous energy and skill into
learning the technically challenging but not very musically rewarding
"Clarinet Solo," instead of better music.

Then Hidemi Mikai and Yasue Sawamura played Hidemi Mikai's "Duo
Capricioso," one of my favorite pieces of whole Fest. (At least, I think
that the composer performed -- the program spelled the composer's name as
"Hidemi" and the performer's name as "Midemi," but I believe the latter was
a typo, since the name was spelled "Hidemi" again in the list of performers
for the Schubert trio that followed.) The "Duo" is a virtuosic piece, and
the composer and Sawamura played it splendidly; but the point of this piece
is not virtuosic display, but good music, written to take advantage of what
clarinets do best. I loved the interweaving of harmony and melody between
the two clarinets, equal partners; and I loved the strong rhythm and
enthusiasm of these two performers. The recital ended with Masahara
Yamamoto joining Yasue Sawamura and Hidemi Mikai for Schubert's "Tanze drei
Klarinetten."

I stayed in the Dekelboum Concert Hall for the next program, another shared
recital, beginning with Michael Webster on clarinet, Leone Buyse on flute
and Robert Moeling on piano, playing Dvorak's Slavonic Dance No. 1. I wish
they had played something else. I liked the musicians, and I love the
music in its two original versions, for orchestra and for piano, four
hands. For me, this arrangement didn't quite work. It wasn't quite one
thing or another. Piano passages that were close to the original writing
from the four-handed version sounded strange when paired up with the
clarinet and the flute; and the clarinet and the flute sounded rather thin
by themselves, as if the musicians were trying out a reduced score.

Stephen Fox (yes, the man who makes the gorgeous basset horns and replicas
of vintage clarinets) on clarinet, Laura Jones on cello and Ellen Meyer on
piano followed, in John Ireland's "Trio in D for clarinet, cello and
piano." This piece frustrated me as a listener, because I had the
impression that it was extremely well-played. Alas, the pianist
overpowered everybody else, with the cellist striving mightily to compete.
Much of the time, when Mr. Fox was obviously playing the melody line, I
couldn't hear him at all. Dekelboum Hall is a "live" room, equipped with a
12-foot Steinway with a huge, resonant tone. It's a terrific piano and it
makes pianists want to pound the bejeezus out of it. You can whomp it as
hard as you like and the tone won't bottom out. Well, most of the pianists
joyfully opened up the lid on the tall stick, and then cut loose and
whomped, and whomped, and whomped. I would have loved to close that lid,
sneak up behind Ms. Meyer
and connect her elbows together with a belt behind her back, to limit her
leverage!

When the next performers, Colin Bradbury on clarinet and Linda Monson on
piano, came onstage, Ms. Monson endeared herself to me at once, by shutting
the lid on that monster. She also throttled back on her arm power. What a
difference! The music on this program, "The Victorian Clarinet Tradition,"
fell so far out of fashion during the late 20th century that it's rarely
heard today, but these performers made an excellent case that these pieces
are better than mere relics: Francisco Gomez's "Lorito" caprice (1898);
Richard Henry Walthew's "A Mosaic in Ten Pieces" (1900); Edward German's
"Romance in F major" (1889) and Harold Samuel's "Novelette" (1913).
Although I enjoy hearing new music, this oldies program made a welcome
change of pace.

When I attended David Krakauer’s Wednesday klezmer concert, I thought I saw
him doing some sort of exotic trill using the lowest right hand trill key
with one or more of the left hand pinkie finger keys. However, at his
“Impromptu Session” on Saturday, I sat to his right (to the left of the
stage from my audience POV) in the second row, and from there, I could see
that the apparent left hand pinkie finger action was an optical illusion.
When he played that trill, the fingers of his left hand were all flapping
loose, not coming within an inch of the keys, except for the side of his
index finger, working the Ab key hard and fast.

Though he made the point that, structurally, klezmer comes closer to
Baroque music than to jazz, many of the klezmer clarinet playing techniques
are also used in jazz. (I wonder if that might be especially true in Mr.
Krakauer's case, since this New Yorker played jazz for years before
abandoning it, then taking up klezmer, as part of his increasing
identification with his ancestry in the Eastern European Jewish community.)
As I'd hoped he'd do, he explained how he played many of his ornaments.
For instance, he showed how he gets the little hitch or grunt between
notes, used both in jazz and in klezmer, by flicking all off his fingers
off the keys so briefly that the clarinet makes a sound without having time
to play a clearly-formed open G. I've forgotten now whether it was Mr.
Krakauer or Scott Wright (on Friday, while talking about altissimo in the
"Extreme Clarinet" session) who left all his fingers down in mid-staff
clarion B position as he played bugle calls on a clarinet.

Mr. Krakauer encouraged the audience to ask questions, but I didn't quite
have the nerve to ask what the klezmer community would think of a
56-year-old shiksa in Virginia wanting to learn to play klezmer.
Pretending to have some sort of empathy based on the facts that, well, my
husband's Jewish, and some of my ancestors were Jewish, might sound more
than slightly lame, considering the backgrounds of the real klezmer
musicians. Anyhow, this was one of the outstanding seminars of the
conference, and a major highlight for me. I bought Mr. Krakauer's latest
recording, "Live in Krakau" (2004), after his session, and highly recommend
it.

(I'd wanted to send this report in time for the Friday afternoon digest,
but missed the chance this morning when the construction guys arrived
earlier than I expected. I don't like to use the computer when they're
using their air compressor. We already went through four 15-amp fuses
today. Kevin had to go out to the hardware store and buy more.)

Lelia Loban
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban
Kerry and Edwards in 2004, because regime change begins at home!

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