 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-04-07 17:46
Can anyone recommend recordings by this artist----where are they available? Thanks!
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Author: Tom Piercy
Date: 2003-04-07 19:42
http://www.clarinetclassics.com is a good place for some recordings of Thurston.
Google.com is also a great starting place to do these types of searches.
Tom Piercy
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-04-08 00:38
In a conversation I had with Roy Jowett many years ago...apparently Thurston possessed an incredible technique and very focused clarinet sound....he did this on a prewar Boosey and it was quite large in the bore....
as to Kell he played on a smaller bore instrument and had an incredibly open sound!
Very few people realize this but on the Beecham Ein Heldenleben RPO you can hear both Brymer and Thurston play( unbelievable blending.)...whether or not this available I still kept my old Lp.
David Dow
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Author: graham
Date: 2003-04-08 08:00
His chief skill was as an orchestral clarinetist and this is heard well in the full set of Brahms symphonies recorded live in 1952, with the Philharmonia and Toscanini. I think the label is Testament.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-04-08 15:38
Thurston made very few solo recordings, and even fewer have been reissued. I've been told he was dissatisfied with all of them.
He married his student Thea King, who owns the rights to his recordings. According to Michael Bryant, she has refused to permit any of them to be reissued. Michael has access to them, plus some broadcast material, but as a political matter his hands are tied.
The Hammerstein Collection at the New York Public Library has most of the Thurston 78s (all but the acoustic Brahms Quintet), which I have listened to. They're stupendous. Someday we may get to hear them.
A couple have been reissued on CD, including the Bliss Quintet, on Clarinet Classics CC0037, and I think there are a couple of Thurston tracks on the Clarinet Classics historical compilations.
Thurston was the original principal in the Philharmonia. When he died, Bernard Walton took over. I'm not sure which of them does the solos in the Strauss Horn Concertos with Dennis Brain -- probably Thurston. There's a low register unison solo with some spectacularly out of tune playing.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-04-09 04:59
If its the Karajan version from 51 it may be when Thurston was quite ill....or it could be a player brought in to replace him or Walton. This type of thing led to some problems in the orrchestra...
check the Walter Legge biography as to some of these artistic matters around the Philharmonia, and I believe the Previn book The Orchestra has some references to some of the internal troubles in this particular band.
I was lucky enough to befreind Hugh Bean(former concertmaster of this orchestra) in the mid 80s and some of the halls they played and recorded in led to alot of tuing trouble...they never heated the buildings due to the fact after the War England was engulfed in an energy crisis...
Sincerely,
David Dow
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Author: Andy
Date: 2003-04-09 09:36
I was lucky enough last year to have a lesson with Thea King and at the end of the lesson, Thea actually gave me Thurstons Bb cl to play. It was a Boosey and Hawkes 10 10 and was a sublime instrument! The mouthpiece was also his and she had selected reed to suit. Although the sound produced wasn't what I am used to (I play a Greg Smith Cicero Kasper) it was a great horn and set up. The sound to me was better then what I usually give the old english school credit for, and it was a much richer sound then that of Brymer.
As for recordings I would recommend the clarinet classics CD's, or even some of the recordings made by thea king as as one of his pupils, she has inherited most likely many of his finest traits as a player.
(She is also a wonderful teacher, I learnt SO much from her, especially in relation to the Bax sonata, a piece premiered by Thurston)
Cheers,
Andy
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