The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2003-06-12 14:56
Tomorrow I will be interviewed on a redio program on clarinet topics. It's gonna be about clarinet performace from a historical and modern perspective.
I have a question for German system students and performers:
How common is it that you study/perform the 20th century pieces composed with the French system in mind: Nielsen, Messiaen, Corrigliano, Francaix, Copland and others?
I hope some people will reply to this hole in my knowlege.
Alphie
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-06-12 15:23
Dear Alphie: I have played the German system clarinet and know it quite well. I have two students who play this clarinet system and can honestly say the differences are only in harmonic spectrum in many regards....
Players like Alain Damiens and Frank Van derBrink play both systems with ease!! I think sometimes people overestimate the differences...
Having studied in France and knowing many players with Oehler German system clarinets(We have a lady in our band who plays one)....I would say they probably play just as much contemporary music as North Americans.
We only get the records of traditional Beethoven Karajan stuff but there are numerous contemporarymodern music groups in Germany and Europe ..ie Es Probably more music that is contemporary.
As to the Oehler system there Ensemble Modern in Koln.......there is no distinct disadvantage whatsoever in learning contemporary music on these instruments....
David Dow
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2003-06-12 16:15
I'm very much aware of the strong contemporary music tradition in Germany and I have played in collaboration with Contemporary music groups in concerts in Germany.
I will reface my question: When I studied in the 70th and 80th, the concerto "classics" of the 20th century by Nielsen, Francaix, Copland and others were not very welknown among German clarinet students. The limit was the three pieces by Stravinsky, Max Reger and Hindemith. Then there was a gap in the tradition and started again with Stockhausen and later contemporary German composers.
My question is: Have pieces like the concertos by Nielsen, Copland, Francaix, Corigliano and other French, American, Scandinavian etc. etc. composers of the 20th century become standard repertoire in the education at German conservatories today?
Alphie
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Author: ron b
Date: 2003-06-12 16:34
As a player of Albert and (mostly) Oehler system clarinets all my musically active life (I am able to do reasonably well on Boehm), I find that it's the player, not the equipment, that makes the difference. Don't get me wrong... a nice horn with a good mouthpiece setup is a definite advantage but the fingering system, in my opinion, matters little, if at all - no matter what style music you play.
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