Klarinet Archive - Posting 000146.txt from 2007/04

From: Oliver Seely <oseely@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: Rimsky
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:24:34 -0400

Nikolai was appointed Inspector of Naval Bands around 1877 so he may
have felt that he had some captive participants. He said in the
"Chronicle of my Musical Life" that he wrote the concertos to learn
the "virtuoso style" and how that style interacts with the
accompanying instruments. Although the oboe and trombone concertos
were premiered at the same concert in Kronstadt on March 16, 1878 and
the clarinet concerto was finished on April 1 of that year, he may
have heard it in rehearsal and didn't like it, but never returned to fix it.

He had at least one chemist friend, Alexander
Borodin. Rimsky-Korsakov said that he'd be in the middle of a
conversation with Borodin when the chemist would jump up and say,
"Hold that thought, I have to check on a reaction," (or however one
says it in Russian) and run into his lab to make some adjustments.

Ah, the slings and arrows of pushing back the frontiers of chemical knowledge!

Oliver

At 08:48 AM 4/22/2007, you wrote:
>Oliver wrote:
>
>"It is said that the composer didn't like the heaviness of the
>accompaniment for the clarinet concerto .."
>
>He was right!
>
>That said,it's interesting to have this work available.
>Your friend Duy plays it with a lot of comittment.
>
>Margaret Thornhill

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