Klarinet Archive - Posting 000046.txt from 2007/03

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Hearing is believing, or is it?
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:04:30 -0500

Music (and to a considerable degree, the world of art including
portraiture and statues) is a business in which a person's
emotions can be overwhelmed with sound. What else in the world
can make one feel about freedom and equality the way the
Beethoven 9 does. How is it possible to play or hear the Mozart
Requiem and not be moved. If you are not frightened by the Dies
Irae of the Verdi Requiem, then you do not know fear.

Because of this entirely emotional impact on our beings caused by
our involvement with great music, I suggest that we (all
musicians) use a descriptive vocabulary that is as ephemeral and
imprecise as the impact of music on our souls. In the case of
the clarinet world, the words we use are "dark sound" and its
corallary "bright sound," and many people will shake their heads
in agreement even though they have no idea what a dark or bright
sound is.

Sound itself is highly personal, almost like color. Do you think
that I see red in the same way as you? You have no idea how a
great performance of a noble work affects me. You can only speak
about how it affects you. Because of this enormous gap in our
abilities to communicate something about our feelings, we have
fallen into the trap of presuming that this or that sound, this
or that composition, this or that instrumelist has a character
that can be accurately communicated with words.

What words?

Well, for example, the sound of the Vienna Philharmonic. You say
the strings are not as shrill as those of the Berlin Phil. In
less than 90 seconds (were we in Berlin), I could easily find a
dozen people who would vehemently disagree with you. A negative
assertion about the string character of the Berlin Phil would be
perceived by them as the ravings of a maniac.

And that is the problem that arises when you say that this
orchestra sounds better (worse, different, more noble, less
shrill, etc.) than that orchestra. The problem is that you are
using an opinion as an allegedly factual battering ram.

Do you think that the citizens of Phildealphia (who have spoken
for years about the "glorious" character of the string section of
their wonderful orchestra) would agree than any orchestra in the
world has a "better" string section, or one with a "better"
sound, whatever those statements mean.

Either be specific about exactly how the VPO has a unique sound,
or give up trying to establish what cannot be established. The
minute you express an opinion about the reasons for your
assertions about the VPO, I'll get a Phildalphian who will be
prepared to shoot holes in your body for that statement.

Bottom line: just because music is an emotional business does not
mean that we never have to prove anything rigorously. And you
have made a statement about the VPO's sound that cannot be proven
at all, much less rigorously.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: danyel [mailto:rab@-----.de]
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 8:10 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] Hearing is believing, or is it?

well, first of all, thanks for the straight forward replies and
thanks, Dan,
for keeping your temper.

As far as racism is concerned let me throw in that I, the alleged
racist or
chauvinist, am in fact the embodiment of Hitler's worst
nightmares, a
mixture of all kinds of "races" and cultures, who grew up mostly
with Jazz,
the very epitome of "Rassenschande" and "Kulturbolschewismus".
Yet as a Jazz musician (classical education notwithstanding),
recognising
people by their sound, articulation and phrasing is quite
essential and
entirely normal for me. Play two bars of Jimmy Noone or Sidney
Bechet or
Lester Young, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, in spite of all their
imitators
their voice remains unique. Now whether you deem that an
important feature
in music is something else, but the sound of the VPO is very
different from,
say the Berlin PO; the strings are not as shrill to begin with.
Our own
instrument is very different in particular. I play chamber music
(Brahms,
Schoenberg) with mouthpieces and reeds made for the VPO players
(Hammerschmidt Wattens, 0; Leuthner, Wiener Schnitt) and I have
an O.
Hammerschmidt clarinet and several older southern German specimen
that were
made along a similar line (most notably a Berthold, Speyer) and
this
equipment makes a hell of a difference. I made many blind fold
tests with
non clarinettist friends and I was always struck by how clear
their
preferences were. Everybody loved the woody, mellow and very soft
yet big
sound of the "Viennese" equipment and hated the comparably
sterile, shrill
and dead qualities of newer German instruments (+ one relatively
good Boosey
Boehm I have, I don't have any more recent Boehm instruments but
several
French mouthpieces from the large bore era that I like); as far
as
nationalism is concerned: two historic Belgian (Mahillon and J.
Albert) and
one French (Leblanc Mueller system) are amongst my ultimate
favourites. They
are not unlike the more recent Austrian instruments, hence my
theory that
Vienna in a way turned out the last resort of traditional, inter
alia,
clarinets. Oboes is another thing. Anyway; I don't care whether
the person
who plays the Viennese clarinet is Austrian or not, but he (or
she) would
certainly have to be soaked well in the culture. Have you heard
Viennese
speak German? On all people who lived in Vienna for a while it
has rubbed
off, it is not a dialect, it is an argot. You can learn it, if
you want. But
you'll have to live in Vienna and live with the people. I believe
it's the
same with music. Many Viennese musicians are of Bohemian and
Hungarian (and
used to be, prior to the Nazi terror, of Jewish) extraction.
Now as far as women and music, I don't have a ready theory. I may
be wrong;
that would be nice. In fact I noticed that my female pupils, in
average,
pick up a nice sound more easily than male ones. Yet
unfortunately I have
not as yet heard a women play clarinet with the kind of subtle,
internal
force characteristic of Wlach, Boskovski, Schmidl, Ottensamer
etc. I
suspect, honestly, that playing the clarinet like that is some
kind of
surrogate, a neurotic symptom. Maybe women have more important
things to do;
I don't know. Although I have a friend who is a wonderful
(female) flute
virtuoso and I wrote quite a few pieces for her over the years
(she's
American, just for the record). I wouldn't want these pieces
played by
anyone else, let alone a man. Her playing Ph. E. Bach wasn't
quite as
successful. There is something very special in the relationship
of a person
with the instrument and it has an erotic quality. Would that
sound like an
option for you?
I certainly don't claim that women cannot play the clarinet. I
just insist
that all people are different with different qualities and I
trust the
tradition that brought about the Vienna Philharmonics (no, it was
NOT
founded by Hitler) more than mainstream gender preconceptions. I
know it is
difficult terrain, esp. in the US were people with African
ancestors were
not allowed to sit next to "whites" in a bus until very recently.
Sure, if
the VPO or any other orchestra would by definition exclude
Africans, I would
raise hell (whether I would require them to take a certain
percentage of
"Africans" and "Asians" and what have you, is a different
matter). But women
are not a "race", which is an entirely fictitious category, but a
sex. And I
have solid proof it exists and is always different in certain,
crucial
respects.
From a quasi feminist point of view I might even say: men must be
good for
something! Maybe that something's the VPO.

So far,
best wishes,
danyel
www.echoton.de/clar.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: "klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2007 7:17 PM
Subject: [kl] Hearing is believing, or is it?

> Keith Bowen's response to the matter of the note from Danyel
> about the impact of gender specificity gives the impression
> (impression hell; it says so outright) that Keith believes his
> ears (and mind, of course) to be capable of identifying certain
> specific performers; i.e., he knows when Brendel is playing
> because he can identify his touch (?), his technique (?), his
> interpretation (?), his ethnicity (?) whatever. Keith does not
> state the source of his knowledge, so I ascribe it to a
mystery.
> Maybe he can do it. I can't, which does not mean much.
>
> Every musician is, or should be, proud of their ability to hear
> things, such as accuracy of pitch, precision of rhythm,
> correctness of tempi, etc. By broadening that sensitivity so as
> to be able to recognize the identity of the performer (or
> characteristics of a specific performer's musical
interpretation)
> appears to me to be more ego than science.
>
> I didn't believe it when Danyel said it, and I don't believe it
> when Keith says it.
>
> The legislation of technical truth based on a person's
assertion
> that they recognize that truth in some unknown but mystical
> manner causes me to take out my blue blanket, like Leopold
Bloom
> in The Producers, and hide from reality.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>

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