Klarinet Archive - Posting 000165.txt from 2011/03

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart/basset horns
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:10:33 -0400

Forest,

Isn't the sound of the opening measures, what with 3 bassets and a
contrabassoon, unearthly??? I have not played that piece as many times as I
should have. Sorry I missed it. And the last time I played it, I worked
the 3rd basset horn. Heaven, absolute heaven.

The use of the contra is an important piece of history. Many say that if
Mozart had had a contra, he would have used it for the gran Partitta. But,
as is clearly shown by the Funeral Music, HE DID HAVE A CONTRA, so the
argument is moot.

Dan Leeson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.com>
To: "'The Klarinet Mailing List'" <klarinet@-----.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2011 10:05 AM
Subject: [kl] Mozart/basset horns

> Dan....would loved to have had you attend the performances of Mozart's
> Masonic Funerary music this weekend...with the
> Dallas Symphony. It's not often you have three (3) basset horns on stage
> at the same time. I thought of you and Keith!
> Three and a half minutes of the most incredibly beautiful music. Here's
> the review:
>
> Classical music review: Van Zweden does it again, with compelling Mozart
> and Stravinsky from the Dallas Symphony
> Orchestra
>
> By Scott Cantrell
> Classical Music Critic
> scantrell@-----.com
>
> Published 17 March 2011 11:16 PM
>
> Does Dallas know how lucky it is? With the Dallas Symphony Orchestra ,
> week after week, Jaap van Zweden is producing
> some of the most compelling orchestral performances to be heard anywhere.
> This is music-making of intellect and emotion,
> elegance and visceral excitement.
>
> The DSO's music director did it again Thursday night, and in very
> different music. He managed to make both Mozart - the
> K. 477 Masonic Funeral Music and the C major Piano Concerto (K. 503) - and
> Stravinsky's Rite of Spring sound as
> brand-new, and astonishing, as they must have been to their first
> audiences.
> With a formidable army of musicians onstage, van Zweden whipped up the
> Rite 's feral ferocities to almost scary
> intensity. Almost more impressive was how organic he made all those
> shifting, off-beat rhythms feel, and he made magic
> of the score's eerie atmospherics. The acoustics of the Meyerson Symphony
> Center were spectacularly displayed, too.
> Wilfred Roberts delivered the famous opening bassoon solo with a tone of
> creamy unearthliness, and clarinetist Paul
> Garner was a standout among numerous musicians with shrieking high parts.
> Timpanist Ed Stephan repeatedly upped the
> excitement.
>
> To post-Stravinsky ears, Mozart can sound like aural comfort food, and
> that's often how it's served up. But van Zweden
> subtly underlined the odd turns of line and harmony in the brief Masonic
> Funeral Music, a somber procession-like piece
> memorializing two of the composer's Masonic brothers.
>
> French pianist David Fray was similarly exploratory in the concerto,
> reminding us how much more spontaneous performances
> must have sounded when soloists, not conductors, controlled the
> proceedings. He didn't hesitate to nudge the music along
> when it wanted to get somewhere, or to linger ever so slightly elsewhere.
> He didn't so much play the notes and runs as set them aglow. Again and
> again, van Zweden coaxed elegantly tapered
> phrases from the orchestra. And with stylishly sparing the vibrato - and
> with Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David
> Kim the evening's guest concertmaster - the violins produced the most
> beautiful sheen I've ever heard from the DSO.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Klarinet mailing list
> Klarinet@-----.com
> To do darn near anything to your subscription, go to:
> http://klarinet-list.serve-music.com

_______________________________________________
Klarinet mailing list
Klarinet@-----.com
To do darn near anything to your subscription, go to:
http://klarinet-list.serve-music.com