The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: shmeon
Date: 2008-04-21 17:06
For all you SF Bay Area clarinet folk out there, who was able to hear Carey Bell play the Mozart concerto last week at Davies Symphony Hall? I went and it was simply amazing. Mr. Bell is destined to become one of the great clarinetists of our time. We're so fortunate to have him in San Francisco. Any comments? What did everyone else think? I particularly loved the improvisatory nature of his interpretation. He made the concerto sound fresh and revitalized, like I'd never heard it before. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time despite the years of study I've put into the piece. I can probably play or sing the whole thing from memory yet Mr. Bell made it sound new. It was outstanding.
-shmeon
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2008-04-21 18:18
SF Chronicle gave his performance a superlative review:
http://tinyurl.com/4b53y8
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-04-21 18:53
shmeon -
The Chronicle review was super-positive but bizarre. Did you hear the "conversations" between the high and low register the reviewer claims to have heard?
Ken Shaw
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Author: shmeon
Date: 2008-04-22 01:57
Ken,
I did hear the conversations between registers. I think what the reviewer was getting at was the different character that Carey Bell used for each contrasting register. I thought Carey made a difference between the sweetly sung upper registers and the strong almost gruff lower registers. But it wasn't as general as that. Sometimes it was completely opposite, but whatever the case I felt Carey was in tune with where the line was going and what needed to happen to get it there. And he used light and dark or masculine and feminine contrasts to help it along. Of course this is completely over generalized. I think to truly appreciate Carey's approach to conversational playing one would have to listen to a recording of it many times. But what I remember most about this topic of conversations is that one could easily provide a text to what Carey played, and you'd have an excerpt from a Mozart opera. Does that make sense?
-shmeon
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-04-22 16:17
Any idea whether the concert was recorded? Perhaps for broadcast? It would be great to hear it.
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Author: shmeon
Date: 2008-04-24 20:22
The performance is being broadcast on April 29th at 8:00pm SF time. check out this link.
http://kdfc.com/pages/743355.php
-shmeon
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