Klarinet Archive - Posting 000049.txt from 2007/06

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Lease Favorite Work?
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:05:55 -0400

I've played the work several times, and the orchestrator, David
Raksin, was the first cousin of a dear and sadly departed friend
and colleague, the late Herb Blayman, principal clarinet with the
Metropolitan Opera from 1950 until ca. 1980.

The work is one that I never cared for, being both too short and
too hard.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Fay [mailto:kevin.fay.home@-----.net]
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 9:40 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] Lease Favorite Work?

I have a new one: Stravinsky's Circus Polka. In the original
wind bank
composition, the Solo 1st Bb clarinet part is the most
"uncomfortable" piece
I've ever played. Much altissimo - my lip hurts.

Apparently Igor didn't even orchestrate the thing. According to
the
"Program Notes" for the Redwood Symphony available at
http://www.barbwired.com/barbweb/programs/stravinsky_polka.html,

"Robert Russell Bennett was too busy to orchestrate, so at
Bennett's
suggestion Stravinsky hired film composer David Raksin (Laura,
Forever
Amber, The Bad and the Beautiful) to score it for wind band. The
Circus
Polka premiered at Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1942,
performed by
the Ringling Circus Band and starring, according to the program,
"Fifty
Elephants and Fifty Beautiful Girls in an Original Choreographic
Tour de
Force, Featuring Modoc, premiere ballerina." Modoc, of course,
was an
elephant, and the New York Times reported that "Modoc the
Elephant danced
with amazing grace, and in time to the tune, closing in perfect
cadence with
the crashing finale." Although contemporary accounts claim the
other
elephants were not quite as adept at following Stravinsky's
rhythmic quirks,
the act was a success and ran for 425 performances.

Stravinsky later adapted the work for full orchestra and
premiered that
version with the Boston Symphony in 1944."

Is the orchestral part as difficult?

What do you like least to play?

kjf

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