Klarinet Archive - Posting 000020.txt from 2007/03

From: Margaret Thornhill <clarinetstudio@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] klarinet@-----.org
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:04:24 -0500

danyel wrote:
>
> Thanks for posting this. The point has indeed been made before, it is
> interesting because it reflects the tendency to ignore aesthetic and
> historic peculiarities or maybe eccentricities in favour of a PC dogma of
> rather dubious motivation. ... In traditional cultures it is
> considered normal that certain music is played by men, other by women. They
> rarely mix in performance; never, as far as I know, in art or ritual music
> except for vocalists.... And their music was, generally, far
> superior to our's.
> Has anybody asked himself (or herself, of course) why the Vienna
> Philharmonic has retained at least some of its unique sound and aura? I
> myself really do like women in all sorts of capacities (most of my disciples
> are female
Danyel,
The argument that an all-male tradition produces a better orchestral
sound is bogus.

From your rhetoric, one might suppose that we were talking about the
Vienna Boy Choir, where it might be argued that the peculiarities of
the juvenile male throat make a qualitative different in tone quality.
No one has ever made a convincing argument that the gender-specific
aspects of the male body contribute in any particular way to the
performance of any orchestral instrument.

The Vienna Philharmonic is certainly NOT the only outstanding orchestra
in the world today , even if it remains the only one not integrated by
gender. Certainly in the 1950s, if not 60s, the Boston Symphony
Orchestra's only woman was a harpist; those days are long gone, and the
orchestra (at least the last time I heard it live in 2005) sounds as
good as it did on the old recordings and astonishingly--(for an
orchestra of relatively youthful players)--rather similar in its overall
sound. And there are quite a lot of women.

Orchestral sound values are passed on by Apprenticeship, not
Discipleship, (a word reserved, in English at least, for religious --and
other-- cults.)

I'll let the gentlemen on this list take care of the rest of your
inflammatory remarks.

Cordial best regards,

Margaret Thornhill
Artist/Teacher of Clarinet
Los Angeles
http://www.margaretthornhill.com

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