Klarinet Archive - Posting 000028.txt from 2005/11

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] A very unusual performance of Mozart's K. 297b
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:42:02 -0500

The sinfonie concertante is quite popular and it exists in two
version, one for clarinet, oboe, horn, bassoon and orchestra, and
one for flute, oboe, horn, bassoon and orchestra (as done by
Levin).

So how do I conclude that the performance as done by the Chicago
Sympnyny in New York today is unusual?

The oboe player Alex Klein was, at 30, one of the most brilliant
oboeists of his generation. Then he got the first chair position
with the Chicago symphony. Within two years he bagan developing a
neurological problem in his hand, and by the end of the 2003
season, he was forced to leave the orchestra.

Today, in Carnegie Hall with the Chicagoans, he will rejoin them
for the performance of the concertante. His medical condition,
focal dystonia, which causes involuntary movement in two of the
fingers of his left hand, is by no means cured, but it has been
improved to the point where he can play for a reasonable length
of time, maybe an hour. Then things go bad again.

Read about this situation in today's New York Times (I read the
West Coast Edition), page B3.

True, it is an oboeists problem, but who knows how many
clarinetists (and others, too, of course) might be facing this
terrible situation.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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