 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2005-08-24 22:23
Driving in my car this afternoon I chanced to hear a recording on the radio of Franz Berwald's "Grand Septet". I assume the instrumentation is the same as the Beethoven Septet. Anyway, this recording was by the Nash Ensemble: no names of the individual players involved were available. A shame, as the clarinet playing was simply elegant! Although I think the Nash Ens. is a British group, the style of the clarinet playing was far more Franco/international than true Brit!
Question is: was this Tony Pay playing on this recording?
Question #2: Apparently this issue is out of print--Amazon has it used for more than $50! Anybody know where it can be found at an affordable price?
larry
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Author: diz
Date: 2005-08-24 22:46
Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello & Double Bass
Larry - I'm with you here, this is a fabulous work and it always amazes me why it is so neglected.
Have you heard or played any of his other symphonic works? The symphonies aren't bad.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: graham
Date: 2005-08-25 07:55
I have played this a few times. It is very nice, but some other instruments have a tedious time, so it is the kind of piece that usually gets played through and put aside, which is a pity. As suggested, it is a great piece to have as a "second string" when having a play session of the Beethoven.
Yes, I think his symphonies are good. No. 1 sticks in the mind. I think my CD has the San Francisco SO playing them. I shall revisit this soon.
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Author: Kai
Date: 2005-08-25 10:14
Hi Larry,
I have several recordings by the fabulous Nash Ensemble and on all of my recordings, it was always Michael Collins. There's a good chance it's also Michael Collins on yours but then again, I don't have that recording.
Kai
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2005-08-29 19:14
Please forgive me for answering my own questions, but my copy of the Nash Ensemble's CD of the Berwald Grand Septet (along with the Hummel septet) just arrived in the mail.
1. I found the CD, new, on the web from ArkivMusic. com. It's on an import label: CRD.
2. The clarinetist on the Berwald is Tony Pay--recorded somewhere around 1996.
It is a beautiful recording--highly recommended, if you can find it -- Arkiv indicated low stock.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-08-31 13:04
The Nash ensemble was founded in the sixties. I'd guess they've got through several clarinet players in that time.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-02 14:30
LarryBocaner wrote:
>>The clarinetist on the Berwald is Tony Pay -- recorded somewhere around 1996.>>
1976, more like. (The recording came out in 1978, so that's about right.)
Tony
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2005-09-02 16:03
Tony,
Info on the CD insert says: "Recorded at the Unitarian Chapel, Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, London; [copyright] 1996 CRD RECORDS LTD." I notice that the recording was originally analog (LP?); possibly remastered for CD in '96.
Listening to something that beautiful, recorded almost 30 years ago is sort of like opening Tut's tomb!
My original enthusiastic response is still intact. Bravo!
Larry
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-04 18:18
LarryBocaner wrote:
>> My original enthusiastic response is still intact. Bravo! Larry>>
Thanks, Larry.
It was interesting for me to dig out this old recording and listen to it with fresh ears. It's a wonderful piece, and I think we don't do too badly with it.
But there is an interesting wrinkle for me. I remember that we had a lot of trouble making the last movement sound 'natural', and in my view never really succeeded. I think I now understand something of why that was, though I didn't at the time.
The problem is that there is a violin tune moving in quarter notes that is accompanied by staccato eighths in the winds, beginning after an eighth rest, first in each 4/4 bar, and then in each half 4/4 bar.
At the time, I thought that there was a simple way to solve this problem: namely, that we all had to play 'accurately'; and then, obviously, everything would fit.
I now know that this isn't true. A series of repeated eighth notes in such a situation has a structure that differs ever so slightly, but nevertheless significantly, from 'metronomic accuracy'. The eighths at the beginning of each group need to be 'not late, and not slow', and the eighths at the end of each group need to be 'not fast'. (Notice how I put that.)
That's because the violin line needs to have its own phrase structure, and that structure cannot be driven by metronomic eighths.
Interestingly, I have a cassette of a live performance we made of the piece, made at roughly the same date; and switching in real time between the two shows that we did better in the live performance.
This sort of thing occurs in other contexts. For example, how the 'cellist plays the accompanying quarters to the violin in the Trio of the Scherzo in the Schubert Octet is a case in point.
These quarters cannot be 'merely' metronomic.
Tony
Post Edited (2005-09-04 20:11)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-09-04 19:55
Tony, we made a recording of this piece, first version from 1818, I think yours is the one from 1828, in 1987 and I remember the specific difficulties with the spot you mentioned. As you point out the timing is crucial and I understand the way you put it. If the first eights are late it loses the swing and if the last are fast it sounds stressed. Each group has to start confidently but without an accent and taper off slightly to not sound like a “Prussian march”. You also need concentration at the recapitulation when this theme very suddenly starts again.
Alphie
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-09-04 20:07
Absolutely. I'm really glad you understand me:-)
Apropos the other part of your post, when we made the Nash Ensemble recording, we didn't know about the earlier version.
But, in another group, I and the others tried quite hard recently to like the earlier one...but couldn't:-) So in the concert we played the later one.
Do you really think the earlier version superior? (Perhaps I should try harder, but I don't think so.)
Tony
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-09-05 16:17
Tony, I think that the later version is better too. The reason why we chose the earlier version was as I remember it that none of us had ever played neither version before and that it would be interesting to play it since it was hardly ever played and to be somewhat “original” (we did it on original instruments and you know what it was like back then). For that whole production we never bothered to even run through the later version. Having said that I’m glad we did it because I think it’s still the only recording of that version on the market, I think!?
Alphie
Post Edited (2005-09-05 16:22)
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