Klarinet Archive - Posting 000210.txt from 2005/03

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] German sound
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 12:27:06 -0500

I suggest that no two players anywhere in the world will produce
precisely the same tone quality, much less a group that happens
to be geographically defined. In the abstract, I propose that
any well-trained performer executing on a clarinet will sound
like a clarinet player, though refinements, nuance, and good body
cavities go a long way to making one's sound more attractive than
another's. Some produce sounds that are more appealing than
others (though I'm not sure why), and some players are such
distinctive artists that the player can be recognized by the
style (Giora Feidman, for example). But whatever differences
exist in sound character cannot be attributed to the country of
birth, or even a geographic area; i.e., there is no such thing as
a German sound or a French sound or an American sound. There may
be players so exceptional (Sabine Meyer, for example) whose
glorious playing is frequently offered as an example of German
sound, but I think she would play that well if she were born and
trained in Iceland or Poughkeepsie.

A great clarinet sound is great because it is great, not great
German or great French or great any nationality. And this
necessity to place clarinet sound character into national slots
is both a waste of time and an impossible act in any case.

And while I may be said to be contradicting myself here, there
are certain countries (Bulgaria, for example) where a most
peculiar performance practice (peculiar to me at least) requires
clarinets to sound like strangled chickens, these are not in the
mainstream of traditional clarinet sound. Turkish and Greek folk
playing is also in this same tradition. It may be that for those
who like this, such sounds are found glorious. But I'm speaking
about western-style symphonic clarinet playing.

And I'm still thinking about generating a tape to send to anyone
who wants to take the test that is intended to demonstrate that
nationalities cannot be discerned from clarinet sound charactera
alone. I'm trying to figure out how I handle players from
Russia, Israel, the Netherlands, and other countries that are not
explicitly German, French, or American. For example, was Simeon
Bellison a German player because he executed on an Oehler system,
though born and trained in Russia, and eventually wound up in the
NY Phil in his middle age? Is Giora Friedman a French player
though born in South America, raised in Israel, and later in life
became a spectacular klezmer artist? How are these cases
defined? And what about Italian players. Was Gino Cioffi
Italian or French in his sound character? And how shall I
characterize Russian players? German? French?

These bastard cases have to be understood before I can make up a
reasonable test tape of about 20 excepts. But if I do, I suggest
that no one will get more right than probability allows. Right
now I think the approach I'm considering is Oehler is German and
Boehm is French no matter where the player is from.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Wojtowicz [mailto:ewoj@-----.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 8:35 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] German sound

Dan-

To clarify your point- I understand that the country of birth or
residence of a player will not define the sound that is made on
the
clarinet. Are you saying that the various design differences that
were
prevalent over the years and their characteristic differences in
bore,
significant difference in mouthpiece facing style and reed type
(for
example a Wurlitzer clarinet with a typical close/long facing and
german reed, large bore Boosey and Hawkes 1010, Buffet clarinet,
all
with characteristic set ups) would produce precisely the same
tone
quality?

Ed

On Mar 4, 2005, at 4:56 PM, dnleeson wrote:

> And for what it is
> worth, I think she has a lovely, captivating, exquisite sound,
> and is a player of great substance, but her sound is no more
> German than it is Bulgarian, Hungarian, or Serbo Croatian. The
> whole purpose of the exercise that we just went through was to
> suggest that national boundaries do not define clarinet sound
> character. People define clarinet sound character.)
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net

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

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