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RE: Sabine Meyer

Author: Mario
Date: 2000-01-31 15:48

Sabine Meyer is on of the absolutely very best (probably amongst the top five). She is also stetching the envelop and will probably do some innovative playing in the next 30 years.

The other morning, I woke up with the radio turned on (CBC FM is my alarm clock). The Mozart Quintet was on. I know this quintet very well. Must have listened to it hundreds of times. Played it myself off and on with friends. The performance on the radio was just incredible - beyond anything I had heard before. Everything was perfect in a most subtle and graceful fashion. The clarinet had the purest of sound, was full of jest and life, and was blending just right with an outstanding string quartet.

At the end of the performance, I learned that it was Sabine Meyer, an 1982 recording on EMI. This must have been one of the first recording she did as a soloist. The radio announcer (also mesmerized by this performance obviously) described her tone as being like "le souffle d'un angle", loosely transated as the "breath of an angle."

Waking up with his kind of clarinet playing in your ears (half asleep still, but with the brain registering well and absorbing things like clarinet tones) is one of the best way to grow musically by sub-conscious influence.

Little note on Sabine. She was the first woman even to join the Berlin Philharmonic (under Karajan). It was not an appointement that made consensus at the time. The urban myth floating around is that it was the sexist old boy network rejecting a woman musician. Most people still think today that it was the case.

The reality is more complex. Sabine was perceived then as first and above all as a musician with strong soloist inclinations. Berlin likes to bring people in and keep them for a long time in order to push orchestral tone and ensemble work to their limits. Sabine was perceived as an exceptional musician but with a low retention potential who would have difficulty to blend in tightly. She did leave Berlin fairly quickly. We might never know if she left because the old boys made her life miserable, or if she left because she did not like the orchestral life after all. Who knows, the old boys might have been right all along.

Leister for instance is still associated today with the Philharmonic and his soloist career always took a back seat to his orchestral one. His style is always understated as you get after years of fusing with 100 others. One cannot say that Leister is a fabulous soloist who could have an independent career even if we all agree that he is a master clarinetist. It takes a different personality to live and die, day in day out, front and center stage.

At any rate, Sabine is a superb soloist, a strong woman, a leader with ideas and drive. She has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic regularly in the last 15 years (so, the old boys must still think highly of years). She will be touring Europe with the Toront Symphony this year.

She still have 30 great years to go as a musician. Wonderful prospects ahead. I am definitely one of her fans.

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