Klarinet Archive - Posting 000040.txt from 2007/07

From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Insanity in Macedonia
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:48:58 -0400

On Wed, 4 Jul 2007 23:36:52 -0700 (PDT), myrnabs@-----.net wrote:
> Mr. Wayne,
> I didn't mind his playing at all. It's just very different to what everyone else is accustomed to. I am a lover of all music, and the last thing I want to do is criticize anyone. Please let us know what you find out. I too am a lover of folk music, and trust me I've heard some weird songs down here where I'm from.

I have heard a few samples of Eastern European folk clarinet playing.
The scooping, bending, and lightning-fast arpeggios can be exciting and
mesmerizing. At first, I thought Mr. Ognenovski was actually going for
that kind of interpretation. Klesmer Mozart, so to speak. Although
utterly non-traditional, such an interpretation of K.622 could be quite
entertaining.

However, there is more (or less) going on here. The drums in the
background seem to be generated by a $15 kid's keyboard (just a straight
boom-chuck-boom-chuck), but the melody and accompaniment don't pay it
any attention. When the going gets a bit tough, the melody instruments
slow down while the drums stay at tempo. I can understand the desire to
be free of the rigidity of a strict tempo, but not like this.

While I was in college, I met a Turkish student who tried to teach me
his style of piano improvisation. In many ways, it was reminiscent of
what we hear in these excerpts.

You do have to admire the chutzpah of anyone willing to claim "He is the
greatest clarinetist, reed piper, zourlist, and small bagpiper of all
time," or to include the following quote, taken directly from the main
page of his web site:

Both Jesus Christ's: "I came not to do away with the Bible, but to
fulfil and continue it", and Michaelangelo's: "The Artist must adopt
strict, artistic rules at first, to be able to break them
afterwards"... could well apply to Ognenovski.

--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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