 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-14 14:29
The late John McCaw, who played with the London Philharmonic and the the Philharmonia orchestra for many years, had -to my taste- the loveliest vibrato I have heard on the clarinet. When asked how he achieved this, he said it was just a natural consequence of singing the phrase and should not be considered a technique. Thus, he refused to teach it. He made very few solo recordings, but recorded the Nielsen and Mozart Concertos.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
Post Edited (2026-03-14 14:32)
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2026-03-14 19:17
Just wanted to vouch for the beauty of McCaw's Mozart & Nielsen concerto recording. Rosario Mazzeo, my teacher at the time it came out, raved about it to me.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2026-03-14 19:26
I completely agree with you Ruben. John McCaw’s playing presents for me the best vibrato I’ve heard in classical playing. Have you heard his solo at the end of En Saga by Sibelius? (Ashkenazy/Philharmonia Orchestra) It’s simply gorgeous.
I met John (or Jack as people also seemed to have called him) when I was 19 years old attending a chamber music course in the UK. Unfortunately I didn’t realise back then how much I would come to admire his playing. But he did give me some really good advice about my embouchure.
On that same course I also met Nicolas Shackleton, who kindly invited me to Cambridge, where I got to see his incredible collection of early clarinets and basset horns. Pretty amazing couple of weeks for an aspiring clarinetist!
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-15 00:08
Thanks for sharing these fond memories, Liquorice! Like you, John McCaw was from the southern hemisphere: New Zealand. To quote Muhammad Ali: "the southern hemisphere is a mighty big place." Also, so much for those for whom vibrato on the clarinet is taboo. It can be used beautifully. Why deprive oneself of it because of some unwritten rule?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-15 12:25
Mr McCaw never really had any clarinet lessons until he was playing professionally. His dad taught him as a child, and he was a Cornet player from a "Brass band" background (might not be a familiar term/concept for USA musicians)
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Author: JohnP
Date: 2026-03-15 13:28
I was told that the recordings of the Mozart and Nielsen concertos were done in one take.
Also I heard a story that once when Till Eulenspiegel was put on the stand at the last minute, Jack who was playing down the line at the start of his career, played the Eb part (actually the D clarinet part) on the Bb. Apparently he had learnt it in New Zealand where an Eb wasn’t so easy to come by. He came to teach at the RCM while I was there to replace Bernard Walton who had died tragically early. I made a stupid mistake not taking the opportunity to have lessons from him. I once heard him say his priority was to ensure that his students were on setups, i.e. instruments and mouthpieces, which he would be happy to play on in the Philharmonia, by which I think he meant instruments which were as well in tune as possible.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-15 14:29
JohnP: He himself worked on his instruments (Buffets and not Boosey and Hawkes 1010s, as were commonly used by British players in those days). His use of vibrato is very different from Jack Brymer's and Reginald Kell's: in my humble opinion, more subtle and less systematic.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2026-03-15 20:08
Agreed on the quality of McCaw's sound. I knew there were sadly few recordings of him outside of his orchestral work, so I was very pleased to discover recently that he made a 1973 recording of the Josef Holbrooke 2nd quintet for clarinet and strings:
https://soundcloud.com/user-561838364/sets/josef-holbrooke-clarinet
I think this is a fine piece, which deserves to be played more, and McCaw's version of it is exquisite.
Interestingly, I gather he shared a characteristic with Bernard Walton of playing on German-made Boehm clarinets. Clarinets direct is currently selling a pair of Hammerschmidts that, it is claimed, are what he used to make the Holbrooke recording. Apparently he only shifted to Buffets later in his career: S1's for orchestral playing, although I gather the Mozart/Nielsen disc is on R13. I thank Alex Allen for this information.
Post Edited (2026-03-15 20:23)
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-16 00:18
A friend of mine studied with him in the late 1980s, near the end of his career. He has a pair of R13s and two mouthpieces that were customised for him, apparently this took quite a lot of time and effort. Both McCaw and his old friend Frank Gurr would retune clarinets, including re-boring clarinet/mouthpiece if necessary. I've been meaning to spend some time examining/measuring etc these clarinets and maybe make an article in The Clarinet but never seem to get around to it. They sound amazing, but I've never played them myself.
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Author: Reformed
Date: 2026-03-16 13:43
I believe that at least earlier in his career, he used a B&H 926 mouthpiece - no doubt somewhat improved. A well controlled vibrato have developed very naturally in the London of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
The front of his Mozart/Nielsen LP which has a reasonably close view of the great man playing. The mouthpiece has distinct gold lettering but I can't make out any detail.
My first time hearing John live was an outdoor concert (1971?) of the New Philharmonia in (I think) London's Holland Park including Rimsky Korsokov's Scheherazade. John's sound floated out but there may have been amplification. Certainly had a huge Wow! factor to a teenager.
I was lucky enough to have a handful of private lessons with John in my Army years (76/77). John had a blow on my Jack Brymer 1010 mouthpiece and gave a very quick "not for me"!
I was struggling with dental problems at that time and had a device in my mouth to move my front teeth forward, prior to an operation to move my lower jaw forward. My take away from John was to analyse everything with an open mind, a stark contrast to my earlier teacher who was much more intuitive. Both were very fine players and musicians.
In one discussion, where John described how he analysed what he did to improve the throat Bb and decided that he had learned to "fork" the shape of rear of his tongue.
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-17 01:10
Another colleague of mine who had a couple of lessons with him said that he would reface a B+H 926 mouthpiece to use with the R13s he "adjusted". But I'll try to hook up with the other friend (who studied for several years with him) and see what mouthpiece he ended up on (refaced and rebored by JMcC)
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-17 13:41
John McCaw was pretty much self-taught. This may explain the uniqueness of his tone more than his use of this or that mouthpiece. Not many Classical players are self-taught. Do you know of any others?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Steve Becraft
Date: 2026-03-18 20:09
Seeing James Langdell's comment about Mazzeo raving about the McCaw recording reminds me of our shared teacher's amusing response when asked about vibrato.
I believe it was James Freeman who told me when he asked Mazzeo what he thought about the use of vibrato on clarinet, he answered "Well you're ALIVE, aren't you??!!"
(Hello James Langdell! I was fortunate to study with Mazzeo 1992-95)
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2026-03-19 03:22
I studied with Rosario Mazzeo from 1971-1976, while I was a music major at UC Santa Cruz and for some time after that.
Speaking of clarinet players using effective vibrato, I recall Mazzeo telling about visiting Reginald Kell, who had also moved to the Carmel, California area after withdrawing from performing and recording. During that visit, Kell played some pieces on a classical guitar. Then he brought out a case with his clarinets and asked Mazzeo, "Would you like to see my clarinets?" Mazzeo answered, certainly yes, and Kell opened the case. Then Kell asked, "Would you like to hear me play the clarinet?" Mazzeo answered yes. Kell then snapped the case shut and said, "I bet you would!"
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-19 11:11
James Langdell: Mazzeo is a rather fascinating figure of the clarinet world. Maybe you could start a new topic on this board and tell us about him. -and he was a polymath. Kell suffered from dementia at the end of his life and from emotional disturbances before that.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-19 11:54
I might be remembering this wrong.... but didn't Mazzeo play the Bernstein Sonata with Bernstein at the piano- but on the Eb clarinet (as he had no Bb handy) and Bernstein transposed the piano part up a 4th at sight? I'm "mostly sure" that's how the story went... anyone else heard this?
Jack McCaw was a genius, no doubt.
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Author: Steve Becraft
Date: 2026-03-20 18:58
The Bernstein story that Mazzeo told me:
At Mazzeo's party in Boston, Lenny sat himself down at the Bosendorfer piano and called for Rosario to come play his clarinet sonata with him. Rosario begged off because of hosting responsibilities, but Lenny wouldn't take No for an answer. Rosario finally obliged, not by playing the clarinet, but by singing through the sonata!
The E flat story is equally plausible, though!
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2026-03-20 19:09
Hearing of Rosario Mazzeo singing his part in the Bernstein Sonata without a clarinet is not surprising. In my lessons with him he would very rarely play clarinet, but would sing to provide examples.
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2026-03-20 22:21
I'm glad of your interest in Rosario Mazzeo. I'll start such a thread about him soon.
There's a lot of valuable information in his book "The Clarinet: Artistry and Excellence". Much of the content was adapted from earlier installments of his long series of "The Clarinet Master Class" articles for the "Selmer Bandwagon" magazine. Today I discovered an archive of scans of this magazine now at the Saxophone.Org website. The first Mazzeo article was in Volume 15 Number 3 from 1967 and continued through the final issue, which seems to be Selmer Bandwagon #86 from 1978. That issue's installment (number 35) addresses extra-musical careers of music makers, which gives a glimpse of Rosario's own wide range of interests.
Here's a link to that archive of Selmer publications.
https://www.saxophone.org/museum/publications/museumType/1/manufacturer/1
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