 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bcl1dso
Date: 2006-02-07 01:38
Does anyone know what happened to Marcellus's and Bonade's Clarinet. I assume they were probably given to family but what happened after that. Boy that would be cool to say you had there clarinets
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2006-02-07 03:52
Maybe cool, yes. But inconsequential really.
Mrs. Marcellus assures me that they are in very good hands.
Gregory Smith
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2006-02-07 05:43
Would they really be that different from any other specially-picked pair of same or like make and model?
My guess is that it's the player that makes the clarinets, not the other way around. As Greg says, pretty inconsequential.
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2006-02-07 06:45
This post may sound a bit contradictory to my previous post in this thread but today, they would be inconsequential - primarily because he would not be playing them.
They really were a pretty special set of clarinets...especially the Buffet R13 A clarinet. If you do a search here and on the mailing list you'll understand why. They've been discussed at length over the years here and other places (someone may have done a doctoral dissertation on them if my memory serves correctly).
When Marcellus picked up my Buffet clarinets (using his mouthpiece) and played them to demonstrate something in a lesson or masterclass setting, I could tell that he was playing someone else's horns - my horns - perhaps because he was not as comfortable as he was with the likes of his A clarinet which practically became a part of him after 25 years of being "married" to one another. It had undergone quite a degree of customisation by Hans Moennig of Philadelphia over all those years.
Even when factoring out my "starstruckness" at the time, when I picked that A clarinet up and played it, it certainly was like no other A clarinet I had ever heard or played before. And every clarinetist that I talked to that had played it had the same kind of experience so I know that I was not alone with that impression.
There was a part of Marcellus in that clarinet. I then understood more clearly from where he was coming after those experiences...that a bit of his musical soul had been imparted into that inanimate object.
I really can't adequately explain it and I certainly will never, ever forget it.
Gregory Smith
Post Edited (2006-02-07 06:50)
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Author: graham
Date: 2006-02-07 07:39
You could, of course, say that any artefact from the past is inconsequential. Ming vases are inconsequential..........
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Author: Bartleby
Date: 2006-02-07 08:22
I've been wondering the same thing about Jack Brymer's. Saxophones which were once owned by the likes of Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scot etc are kept in glass cases for public display. Can't help thinking it would be nice if a similar thing were done for Brymer, Thurston, Kell etc.
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Author: Gregory Smith ★2017
Date: 2006-02-07 11:22
graham said:
"You could, of course, say that any artefact from the past is inconsequential. Ming vases are inconsequential.........."
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Indeed one could have - but I chose for it to take on a different meaning. Differentiating between artifacts that humans bring to life and those that do not is perhaps a helpful way to look at it.
One can measure, study scientifically, just about any artifact and obtain some "really cool" information about it. But speaking as a musician, the most important part by far about the artifact that I think the musician needs to know about it is what happens when we actually interact with it to express ourselves.
Perhaps that's why musical instrument museums containing unplayable specimens, while really cool to visit, never excited me like those containing playable instruments with a history....or at least a history that I could relate to.
Gregory Smith
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Author: graham
Date: 2006-02-07 15:24
Kells clarinets are on display in Scotland. Thurston's Martels are still being played professionally though I think his 1010s are still in the hands of Thea King.
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Author: Bellflare
Date: 2006-02-07 15:27
<<<Mrs. Marcellus assures me that they are in very good hands.
Gregory Smith>>>
Umm, was Mr. M buried with them?
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-02-07 16:08
I've played, briefly, three "important" clarinets. The first was Alexander Williams's A clarinet, which he let me try when I studied with him. The other two are a Bb and an A belonging to Kalmen Opperman, which began as exceptional instruments and which he modified for his own use.
Each of them had an instantaneous response and tremendous warmth and power. In addition, each would play with many different tones.
I notice this quality in Bonade's and Marcellus's playing. When you listen to the wonderful "bleeding chunks of Wagner" CD with Szell and Cleveland, Marcellus makes the thick, creamy "German" sound. On his Mozart Concerto, he makes the clear, sweet "American" sound. On the excerpts CD, Bonade makes dozens of different sounds.
To hear Alexander Williams on his A clarinet, listen to the Toscanini Pines of Rome, in which he is gorgeous in the big solo.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2006-02-07 16:26
And then you have somebody like Ricardo Morales or Paul Meyer who change clarinet every other year and don't really think any of it.
Some players really don't get attached to the instruments, others really develop an almost human relationship with them. I am envious of the former and fascinated by the latter.
-S
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Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: kchan ★2017
Date: 2006-02-08 00:46
And then you have somebody like Ricardo Morales or Paul Meyer who change clarinet every other year and don't really think any of it.
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Could it be that they are looking for something great and special and they're just not finding it?
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2006-02-08 03:11
A few years ago when I was 16, I had the good fortune of getting to study with Iggy Gennusa, a clarinetist with a reputation of a have the closest sound to the legendary Ralph McClane. I sat next to him for years and heard that gorgeous sound. He was an "old school" kind of teacher that would, if he thought you were worth the trouble, play in lessons. There were many times I had learned to play a rose etude just "a-musical" enough that he would take my clarinet, mouthpiece and all, and proceed to play with exactly the same amazing sound that he got with "his" set up. When he started making his mouthpieces in the early 80s, he would sit and work on some mouthpieces play the legendary Chedeville, then play one of his exelantes, and he sounded every bit as good. A few years later I was at his house and he finally let me play the "ched" that Moses gave him at Mt. Sinai, and it was incredibly ordinary. If any of "his" mouthpieces would have played like that I would have left them in Glenn Rock. I played the whole rig, Clarinet, mouthpiece and all, it was all pretty pedestrian equipment. To see this clarinet treated as a "holy relic" last year at the Oklahoma Clarinet symposium, dishonored his memory. It reduced the immense talent this man possessed and demonstrated a whole career, to just that fact that he had a "magic wand".
If I could have gotten anything from Iggy when he died, it would have been his ears. The man sounded better that most clarinetist because he could hear better than most. And I'm sure that is the case with Robert Marcellus, Harold Wright and just about anyone else that's a God Dejour. I think we put way too much thought energy into having the "right" this and the "correct" that. I've played a lot of these expensive clarinet devices, mouthpieces made with special rubber synthesized for information gathered from spectral analysis of mouthpieces found in the pyramids. They aren't any better, If you can't play it on the mouthpiece you're playing, it ain't the mouthpiece. The first things college students do, is go buy a Moenig barrel, why? Because they know the barrel that came with the clarinet won't work? Do they understand that Moenig built those to adapt large bore mouthpieces that everyone was playing on large bore selmers, to play on the new smaller bore instruments? If you're playing on a smaller bore mouthpiece ie a vandoren or something similar you might be doing something detrimental to the design of the instrument. You can't buy game! PF Fliers didn't make me run faster or jump any higher. Before you spend over $75 on anything for your clarinet, make sure you know how to balance a reed, and you know how to breath!
Ok this turned into a rant, so that's just my opinion, I'd love to hear yours.
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with Lox&Vodka, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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Author: graham
Date: 2006-02-08 08:10
Well, there is always the potential of the "placebo effect" when playing a great player's instrument. On the other hand, the saying " a bad workman blames his tools" is probably rooted in the concept that a good workman has a key skill in selecting excellent tools. Who knows. I have played Charles Draper's clarinets. Yes, they seemed remarkable, but I would have to play them a great deal more to really know whether they were straightforwardly better than my own.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2006-02-08 13:46
I agree with Tom, the equipment does not make the player. On the other hand, I believe there is a such a thing as a great mouthpiece or a great clarinet and even if they have nothing to do with the talent and work ethic of the legendary players, good equipment helped them get to the top of their craft.
I also agree with Greg Smith, on the sort of symbiosis between Player and Equipment. I think Marcellus did so much great music with his clarinet, that simply looking would make you feel there is a little bit of his musical soul in there.
One thing that we seem to oversee a lot is the reed. Because, truly, IMHO, if you can properly adjust a reed, you are already ahead of the game in terms of tone, articulation and legato playing,.... There have not been many discussions on the topic here, but I sure wish somebody could give me a magic formula to get all my reeds to speak!
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Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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