Klarinet Archive - Posting 000191.txt from 2007/02

From: "Tony Pay" <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Reginald Kell
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:32:44 -0500

On 2/22/07, James Sclater <Sclater@-----.edu> wrote:
> Tony Pay wrote:
> > What intrigues me is that as far as I know, no-one who has listened
> to
> > it and commented here or on the Bulletin Board has hitherto
> mentioned
> > what I find the most surprising thing about it: namely that Kell not
> > only plays all three pieces on the Bb -- I suppose Stravinsky does
> > say, 'PREFERABLY' Clarinet in A -- but that he goes on to TRANSPOSE
> > the first up an additional semitone. I find it hard to think that
> > Stravinsky would have approved of that.
>
> For what it's worth...
> I have a photocopy of the title page of the Stravinsky Three Pieces
> which is autographed by the composer to Kell. The composer compliments
> Kell on his excellent musicianship. One might assume that I.S. heard
> Kell play the Three Pieces and approved of his rendition.

But that's exactly what I wrote in my post, except that I gave the
actual French text of Stravinsky's autograph. As I said, Stravinsky's
supposed comment that it was 'the best he'd heard it played', even if
accurately reported, refers only to the performance in the 1934
concert, and NOT to the recording, made many years later.

Unless, as I said before, anyone has anything about Stravinsky and
that recording -- which I very much doubt, for the reasons I gave.

There is no such thing as 'Kell's rendition', isolated from the
various performances he gave. He'd surely be a bit careful when
playing it IN FRONT OF Stravinsky, who was known to be very hard on
gratuitous 'interpretation'.

I sometimes wish that people didn't talk of my recording of the Mozart
as 'Tony Pay's rendition' -- which it certainly isn't, nowadays.
(It's just something that happened one Monday morning 22 years ago:-)

Tony

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