Klarinet Archive - Posting 000015.txt from 2005/09

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] For Tony Pay
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 10:02:04 -0400

On 2 Sep, Nancy Buckman <eefer@-----.net> wrote:

> Hi Tony,
>
> Can you tell me how to get hold of the J. Humphries edition of the Krommer
> Octet-Partita, Op.76 for winds (the one you used with the Michael Thompson
> Wind Ensemble recording)?

OK, here's the story of that recording.

Although I was a member of the previous incarnation of the Michael Thompson
Wind Ensemble (the Barry Tuckwell Wind Ensemble as was, which obviously
changed its name when Barry retired), the resident clarinettist is my old
friend Robert Hill. He became ill, and wasn't able to do the recording, so I
very willingly agreed to help out.

The recording was for Naxos, a firm I have to say I loathe. They are a
purely business enterprise that makes a lot of money for its owners by asking
not so well known groups to record repertoire in a very, very limited time,
for a very, very small fee, producing CDs that they market very, very well at
a very, very low price.

I admit that the results are sometimes quite good, especially if the pieces
are initially in the repertoire of the group.

In our case, the pieces weren't within the repertoire of the group; but the
players are all excellent -- so the fact that in the sessions we often read
through a movement that we hadn't ever even seen, and were then asked to
start recording within 20 minutes, without any time to begin to explore the
musical possibilities, didn't have a very large technical effect on the
results.

Of course, it had a very large *musical* effect on the results, which is one
reason I find I can't listen to the performances.

Anyhow, I was at least sent my part prior to turning up. This proved in one
of the Partitas to be written in D major -- and so was obviously just a
modern edition, consisting of a C clarinet part transposed to Bb.

Now, I have a good friend who used to run and play in a period wind ensemble,
and it turned out that she had a contemporary publication of the piece (in
which, sure enough, the clarinet parts were for C clarinets), and she was
willing to lend it to me. So, I photocopied the parts, got in touch with
Nick Carpenter (who was my 'Rolls-Royce' second player:-) and we agreed to
play on C clarinets for the recording.

I was therefore interested to read on the CD cover, when it came out about 5
years later, that Mr Humphries had provided the edition. Further, he wrote
in his programme note that the C clarinet is a special feature; but the truth
is that realising that it had to have been written for a C clarinet, and
actually playing it on a C clarinet, was something I did entirely by myself.

So, I can't help you. Perhaps he does do an edition of the Krommer -- but
I've never seen it:-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Sorry... my mind has a few bad sectors.

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