 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-01-12 14:05
I just had to rave about a live performance I heard on public radio last night, of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. It was so good I stopped my car and pulled off the road to listen to the rest of the performance (and to find out who was playing!). I'd say that it was the finest interpretation of the piece I've ever heard, and possibly the most gorgeous clarinet playing I've ever heard too. At first I thought it was Karl Leister, or maybe Emma King, but there was a lot more in the way of dynamics than on the Leister recording I've got, and there was just a hint of vibrato on occasion in the upper register. The tempi, the tone, the intonation, everything was as perfect as I could imagine. Finally, it was over and the announcer said it was played by the principals of the Cleveland Orchestra, with Franklin Cohen on clarinet. I'd never heard Mr. Cohen's playing before, but if I can ever play one one-thousandth as well as he does, I'll die happy! It's sort of depressing for us hackers to hear playing on such as level, because I for one know that, except in my dreams, I never will play that well even if I practice 12 hours a day for the rest of my life. But my philosophy (which keeps me sane) is that the striving for perfection is just as important as the achievement, and we should all gain satisfaction from just playing good music and improving our own skills (on whatever level), and we can still marvel at playing like Mr. Cohen's and be grateful that there are artists like him with such special talent.
Dave Spiegelthal
Clarinetist wannabe
Calverton, VA
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Author: William
Date: 2000-01-12 17:19
A while ago, last summer, maybe, I was listening to a jazz program on my car FM radio being broadcast by our local NPR radio station and they were featuring a mystery guest artist on sax playing Summertime. The performance was interesting and I, of course, was making wild guesses--Lester Young, Stan Getz, Ben Webster, etc--and continued listening, as you did, top find out who the famous sax artist could be. At the conclusion of the song, the announcer almost caused me to lose control of my vehical by disclosing that the mystery guest artist was none other than Pres. Bill Clinton in a rare recording. There are a lot of not-so-famous musicians out there for us to hear and the above example should give hope to all of us. By the way, the Pres. is not that bad on sax. He once played on the Tonight Show and earned money by playing jazz while in college.
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-01-12 20:37
William,
Of the one short recording I heard of the President playing sax (in a Czech nightclub, or something like that), I'd have to say it was fairly mediocre, about on the level of a typical high-school stage band sax player (no offense to you high school saxophonists out there!). I'd be surprised if he actually ever played professionally.
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Author: Lelia
Date: 2000-01-13 13:05
Dave Spiegelthal wrote:
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William,
Of the one short recording I heard of the President playing sax (in a Czech nightclub, or something like that), I'd have to say it was fairly mediocre, about on the level of a typical high-school stage band sax player (no offense to you high school saxophonists out there!). I'd be surprised if he actually ever played professionally.
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Conventional wisdom among sax players seems to be, "He's okay for a high school rock player." <Shrug.> That's my impression, too, but I do think he deserves a lot of credit for keeping up his skills as well as he has, considering that he's been employed full-time in more demanding jobs than most of us live with. Better he should practice his sax than mess around with the White House interns....
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