 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2013-12-28 23:53
On YouTube the Polish clarinetist Piotr (Peter) Szymyslik performs the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with an almost magically light, floating tone, perfect entrances on each note, wonderful legato, and no buzzing, honking, or rattling on the bass notes of his extended Chadash clarinet, though he does use a little vibrato on the low notes, which may not be to everyone's taste. (Search YouTube Piotr Szymyslik, clarinet).
The only info. I can find on him is that he was associated with some orchestras in Seville and is now touring Poland as a soloist. His playing reminds me a bit of Ralph McLane's.
Does anyone know more about him? Has he done any other recordings?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-12-29 07:54
Seabreeze - You create links by enclosing each address in <>.
I could find only movements 2 and 3,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jab_2PA1rSU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nnDU3MOTpQ
It's a fine performance, though hard to listen to through the muzzy echo. I've listened a lot to Larry Guy's McLane CD, and I hear little similarity in either tone or style.
It would be nice to know the source of your other information. For example, how do you learn that the clarinet is made by Chadash?
Mozart's orchestration is for strings plus pairs of flutes, bassoons and horns. This orchestra has 3 flutes, 1 clarinet and 1 horn. The clarinetist is clearly transposing the Horn 2 part. Maybe the bassoon parts are played by cellos. I have no idea what the 3rd flute plays.
Ken Shaw
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2013-12-29 10:00
Chadash, on his website <www.chadashclarinet.com> puts Piotr Szmyslik at the top of the Audio Examples page which offers sound bytes of performers playing on Chadash equipment. It is true that Chadash says only that Szmyslik plays the "Chadash Basset A extension," so the performer could be using another brand of clarinet with it. To fill out details of what Szmyslik plays is one reason I posted this inquiry. I am very taken by the gentleness of his tone and would like to know more about his complete setup. Does he sound like an everyday, garden variety clarinetist to you? He really doesn't sound much like any other clarinetist, but the example of Ralph McLane came to mind because Szmyslik, like McLane has a rather covered sound without much edge and a lot of luminescence coming from the center. Ron deKant, who heard live performances from McLane many times once described McLane's tone as "always very fresh and new sounding."I hear something like that from Szmyslik.
I also like the way Szmyslik plays very soft without sounding the least bit hollow and without the sonority crossing the line over to become too much like a flute or recorder, or reedy like a harmonica. To me personally, that is something to emulate. In each entrance of the famous Pines of Rome solos, McLane does this too, but not exactly with the same timbre as Szmyslik. Harold Wright, in his Pines of Rome, sounds a bit edgier to my ears, which I do not like as much.
The orchestra seems to be a training vehicle for young players, which might explain some of the anomalies you point out. Certainly there are better performances e.g. Bram deWilde or Ricardo Morales (who also wonderfully manages on his Selmer Recital basset clarinet not to wheeze and rattle on the low notes as many other players do), but none, to my ears more distinctive in clarinet tone than Szmyslik's.
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