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Re: Marcellus's Mozart

Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2003-12-31 23:54

"There are countless great orchestral clarinetists.
There are countless great soloists.
However, the number that could do both is extremely small.
Put Marcellus' name at the top of the list...GBK-----
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Not to mention chamber musician, conductor, teacher, and along with it a towering intellect about music whether it be classical or jazz. The breadth and depth of knowledge that this great musician posessed was legendary...as observed by some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century no less. Just read the memorial tributes from no less than a Pierre Boulez or a John Browning for instance.

He was one of perhaps a handfull of people that I've met where I've sensed - no, knew - that I was in the prescence of greatness or genius...and not in the simply charismatic sense, although he did exude that too. My appreciation for this great musician only grew over the 20 years that I knew him as teacher and then as friend and colleague.

To play a Schubert Octet or Mozart Serenade or Varese Octandre or perhaps the Schubert Unfinished Symphony or Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis or Ravel Daphnis under his direction was truly awe inspiring...not just to me, but to many of the top musicians that played with OR for him.

What an increasing number of observers don't realize is the relative shortness of his playing career (20 years) and that the Mozart concerto was recorded when he was an incredibly young but mature 33 yrs. old, quite a feat all things considered. Many haven't heard the live performance on tape of his Mozart that was done 12 years later. His approach was almost exactly the same but with the maturity of a 45 yr. old. He knew exactly what he wanted and even outdid his recording as far as mastery of the music and of the crarft in that live performance. Perhaps it was even more exciting because of the fact that it was a live performance.

His interpretation of the Mozart Concerto was the embodiment of that famous quote by his music director (and fine chef), George Szell who, in response to those very few critics that wanted more "emotion" in Szell's interpretations of music from the classical period exclaimed, "You don't expect me to pour chocolate sauce over asparagus do you?"

I hear nothing dated in the interpretation of his rendition of the concerto compared to others except perhaps the exclusion of improvisation - which was not being practiced in the days of either performance except in the realm of a new emerging "scholarly" movement just in it's infancy.

In the live performances I have on tape from 1961 and 1973 he played a little with the orchestra tuttis in the introduction to get his reed wet and then played with the orchestra all the way to the last note of the entire work to punctuate the final statement and send the audience off with no less than bravos and cheers. They simply loved him. He was their crowning jewel amongst a musician's orchestra...and a clarinetistt's clarinetistt amongst several generations of his peers.

Gregory Smith

Post Edited (2004-01-03 01:27)

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Marcellus's Mozart new

theclarinetist

2003-12-31 04:56