Klarinet Archive - Posting 000053.txt from 2007/06

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] least favourite part
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:56:14 -0400


Peter Stoll wrote,
>>I remember a fiendishly-difficult
>>over-the-break lick in I think
>>Stokowski's arrangement of Bach's
>>Toccata and Fugue in D minor for
>>full (very full!) orchestra. It's where
>>the fugue itself starts from what I
>>remember. I once saw a professional
>>orchestra on TV playing it, when it
>>came to the moment where the whole
>>clarinet section has a soli on the tune,
>>they did a close-up, the principal's
>>fingers were flying, the other players
>>hands weren't moving!! So much for
>>convincing fakery. Anyone else had to
>>tackle this piece, is it as bad as I remember?
>>I was in high school, more than 6 months
>>ago now :)

My compliments to Peter Stoll's high school orchestra, because my high
school orchestra (back in the day when Woolly Mammoths roamed the
campus...) wouldn't have dared try to play Bach's Toccata and Fugue in
Devil-minor: instant train wreck. The clarinets have it easy compared to
the bass fiddles. I'll bet there aren't ten orchestras in the world with
bass fiddle sections that can play up to the speed of Eugene Ormandy with
the Philadelphia Orchestra, recently available on RCA's "Classics from the
Crypt," RCA 09026-38-2. I think that recording dates from the earliest
days of Hi Fi. It's probably available on much better-quality CDs than
mine. The recording is noisy by today's standards, neither remastered nor
properly attributed on this cheap novelty CD that's sold for Hallowe'en
party music. Even that virtuoso orchestra doesn't give a 100 percent clean
reading, but it's the best performance I've ever heard of Stokowsky's
arrangement.

Somewhere, I've got a recording of Stokowski himself conducting his
arrangement. It came out originally on 78s. EMI re-released it on CD in
1997. I can't find the CD and forgot to log the orchestra in my
bibliography, but I think it's the London Philharmonic.

I don't object to Stokowsky's blowsy whore of an arrangement, because it's
hard to beat the original piece for sheer, voluptuous tastlessness--one of
the things I love about it! Bach's prim and proper patrons complained off
and on that his organ music was too exciting for church. I think BWV 565
is Bach giving his bosses a musical mooning. Therefore, the louder and
more bombastic the interpretation, the better it captures Bach's spirit.

BWV 565 can be played from the organ score on a single-voiced instrument
with a big compass, with some octave transposition. (Sone musicologists
believe Bach began writing the piece for solo violin, then changed his
mind). Try it on contra-alto or contra-bass clarinet. I wouldn't want
anybody to hear me, but it's quite a workout on big jumps back and forth
across the break.

Lelia Loban

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