Klarinet Archive - Posting 000143.txt from 2007/03

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Bright and dark sounds
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:00:09 -0500

There is a famous story about the oboeist Bruno Labate, who
played 1st in the NY Philharmonic probably before I was born. He
was said to have been such a gifted player who had no idea how he
did what he did. Once during the rehearsal of the Bizet C major
symphony, he played the second movement solo so magnificently
that at the end of the movement, the entire orchestra was staring
at him in awe.

He looked around surprised, and said, "Eh? You lik-a my new
shoes?" He had no idea that everyone was amazed at his
brilliance and thought that they were looking favorably at his
new shoes..

Now the story related to bright and dark.

Klemperer was conducting in the 30s, and at a certain point he
stopped the orchestra to tell Labate how he wanted something
played.

And he waxed poetic about the glory of the passage and how it was
like a woman's silk yellow kerchief floating on the air as it
came down with a sound that was ... blah, blah, blah. And he
went on for some 45 seconds using words like beauty, character,
brightness of sound, elegance, etc.

Finally, Labate interrupred him and said, "Hey Klemp! You wanna
me to play it loud or soft?"

Once I was playing bass clarinet in the Elgar Falstaff and did a
small solo passage. The conductor stopped, looked right at me
and said, "Play that again please." I did, but this time alone.

The conductor made a sour face and said, "Can't you make that
sound darker?" I didn't know what the hell he wanted. So I tried
it again.

This time he said, "Can't you cover that sound more?"

So I played it again, this time looking very serious by putting
my eyebrows together and trying to get a look of fierce
determination on my face, which is not easy to do when you have a
bass clarinet stuck in your mouth.

"Aha," he said smilingly. "Now you have it, perfectly."

I thought to myself, "Loud or soft?"

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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