 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2006-06-26 00:03
It is a great pleasure to watch a new released DVD titled 'Morricone conducts Morricone". As the title indicates, it's the collection of some 20 movie music he composed, and the orchestra + chorus and other solists' (panflute, voice, violin) performance is sublime.
As I watched the clarinettist in the orchestra, I wonder how different the player's style and mindset would be, compared with those of a soloist clarinettist. For example, if Sabine Meyer were one of the (maybe 2) clarinettists in a big orchestra, would she still sweep the instrument wildly as we've seen in one of the previous YouTube clips?
I think being solo should and must be much more stressful than being a orchestra member clarinet player (at least you can 'hide' behind a violin player..) . Any disagreement on that?
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: marzi
Date: 2006-06-26 00:24
she would sweep until the adjacent players got tired of getting hit by her clarinet and grabbed it away from her...
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-06-26 00:32
claclaws wrote:
> I think being solo should and must be much more stressful
> than being a orchestra member clarinet player
> (at least you can 'hide' behind a violin player..)
If you know of a place to hide when playing the opening of Sibelius No. 1, let me know. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
...GBK
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-06-26 03:54
Hmm, hiding behind another in a professional enviornment ... I think not.
As to sweeping your instrument around madly when you're performing at the front of an orchestra ... I personally don't like to watch it because it just distracts from the music and I end up thinking "you wally".
And, to the topic of Morricone (sp?) ... the soundtrack to the early 80s classic "The Thing ..." is seriously scarry (as was the film).
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2006-06-26 03:59
Ennio Morricone's music is very good. I love his oboe solos in The Mission (good movie btw).
Just go to a clarinet event and many famous orchestral players will be featured as soloists, then go see them play in their respective orchestras. Usually those that move a lot while playing as a soloist will still move around when they play in an orchestra, but it won't be as dramatic. Some people just move more than others when they play.
As stress is concerned, if you have a solo in orchestra and you make a mistake people will remember your mistake. If you're a soloist and you make a mistake, people will still remember that mistake, but this time you just have more time to prove that you can play while as in an orchestra the solos aren't as long. I don't know if that makes sense, but it does to me. The stress level probably just depends on person to person and which you prefer to do. With an orchestra, you have to tune to all of the other instruments. In a solo type situation you have to only tune to the piano, string quartet, etc.
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2006-06-26 16:25
I think you'll find that Sabine Meyer was actually principle clt with the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan. From my own experience you have a totally different mind set for orchestral, solo and chamber music playing.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Chris Hill
Date: 2006-06-26 20:08
I'm fortunate in that my contract calls for me to perform at least one concerto each season. I'm told that I'm unusually still when I sit in the orchestra, but I have to be careful not to move too much in a concerto. (I have nice, honest friends who tell me things like, "Nice doppler effect in rehearsal tonight." I learn my lesson, and stand a little more steady.) I agree with Carrie that in some ways, it is easier to play a concerto, but it's all stressful. It's a positive stress, but it is a stress. I think the most wild concert for me in that regard was when I got to play Rhapsody in Blue, the Mozart Clarinet Concerto 2nd movement, and a Benny Goodman medley on the same concert. I think the poor reed was swearing at me in multiple languages by the end of the concert!
Chris
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-06-26 21:21
Mark Nuccio said that when he sits on an audition committee, and the players come out from behind the screen, he watches for excess movement. He thinks "do I want to sit next to this guy for the next 25 years."
Orchestral players (except perhaps for the Vienna Philharmonic principal oboist) universally sit like statues most of the time. Stanley Drucker moves around a bit on big solos, but the rest of the time he could be sculpted in marble.
Ken Shaw
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Author: JessKateDD
Date: 2006-06-26 21:55
I have a video of Sabine playing principal with Berlin on the Alpine Symphony (Leister played Eb that concert). She was moving quite a bit, as I recall.
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Author: Kevin
Date: 2006-06-27 13:29
Ken Shaw wrote:
> Orchestral players (except perhaps for the Vienna Philharmonic principal
> oboist) universally sit like statues most of the time. Stanley Drucker moves
> around a bit on big solos, but the rest of the time he could be sculpted in
> marble.
And then there's Wenzel Fuchs of the Berlin Phil.
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2006-06-27 13:33
Kevin,
You mean, Fuchs sits like statue?
Jess...,
I wish I could watch that video! Any info for purchase? DVD format would be even better.
Thank you, BBoarders, for your inputs. They are all fun to read, and as always, instructional, too.
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: crnichols
Date: 2006-06-27 15:18
Fuchs does not sit like a statue, and he certainly didn't stand like one either when I attended his performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic back in February or this year. It wasn't excessive or contrived looking, very natural, never detracting from the performance. As a matter of fact, usually there is some natural body movement present, especially by the woodwind principals over here in Europe. I more often see people moving a little bit than sitting like statues. I think one of the reasons that the ensemble is excellent in the orchestra nearby where live, the Bamberger Symphoniker, is the players, most notably the principals, move naturally together. It's not obviously rhythmic, as I usually observe in amateur performances, but rather musical, and I think it contributes in a way to some of the outstanding ensemble playing I've heard from him. I think the only clarinet player that sat like a statue that I truly love to listen to was Harold Wright. In his case I think it contributed to how amazing his playing was; to have such a beautiful sound full of expression and character coming from someone that was so static to look at while playing is a little unusual. It seems this way to me as I find it impossible to sit like a rock while playing, it just feels uncomfortable to me, I feel restricted and tense, and those are two things that I'd rather not feel while playing the clarinet. I do however find it distracting when someone dances around the stage (such as Keisuke Wakao, the associate principal oboist of the Boston Symphony), and I'd probably not be particularly interested in spending a great deal of time performing next to them.
Christopher Nichols, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Clarinet
University of Delaware
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Author: bcl1dso
Date: 2006-06-27 22:01
Just for the record Sabine Meyer was second clarinet in the Berlin Philharmonic. After he trial period they voted to not keep her, Karajan said that if she left he would leave. She left(he didn't). Karl Leister was principal clarinet.
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Author: JessKateDD
Date: 2006-06-27 22:29
bclldso,
I think you are mistaken on this one. The Berlin Philharmonic does not have one principal player per instrument like most American orchestras. They usually have 2. When James Galway was with Berlin, he was one of three solo flutists.
Sabine Meyer was hired as solo clarinet. And Karl Leister was the other solo clarinet. In the concert on the video, she is playing principal, and Leister is on Eb.
Sabine was the first and only woman in the orchestra at the time. The orchestra hated her for two reasons - first, she was a woman. Second, because Karajan hired her over the orchestra's objections. Karajan and the BPO were so miffed at each other afterwards that he made peace with the Vienna Philharmonic (which he had been feuding with since the mid 60s over the opera's refusal to give him complete artistic control) and made most of his late recordings with Vienna.
There is more about Sabine and her tenure at Berlin here:
http://www.osborne-conant.org/cellists.htm
Post Edited (2006-06-27 22:38)
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Author: claclaws
Date: 2006-06-28 10:24
JessKateDD,
Thanks a million! One trouble is that maybe the format of DVD available in the States might not work for the machine here in Korea...I'll check that out.
Your link to the 12 cellists and BPO was really interesting...
"some claimed that it is impossible for women to really play in unison with men because they have different bodies. " --> WHAT??
If that's ever true, I'm glad I'm in a women-only woodwind ensemble! (Though it's due to different reasons that we form it women-only...)
Lucy Lee Jang
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Author: Cuisleannach
Date: 2006-06-28 14:33
As I recall, I think in conversations with LSO members, the LSO used to be men-only. Then they started to allow women, but only if the women were twice as good (figuratively, I'm sure) as the men. This set up quite a problem for the men, as the women, being twice as good, could play circles around the men and held and began occupying the more prominent positions.
Poetic justice, even if it is apocryphal.
-Randy
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2006-06-28 15:45
I wonder if much of the difference in movement between soloist and orchestra member is simply due to the fact that one is standing and the other is seated.
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Author: crnichols
Date: 2006-06-28 18:22
Soloists don't always stand. From what I've heard Harold Wright and Robert Marcellus usually performed seated as a soloist. I'm sure someone might correct me on Marcellus, but I know Wright always sat when he played. Another example, when I was studying with Steve Barta he said he hadn't performed standing in at least 10 years.
Christopher Nichols, D.M.A.
Assistant Professor of Clarinet
University of Delaware
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