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Re: Professional Conductors - Marcellus Crystal Mouthpiece

Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-09-20 21:00

I've been told that Marcellus played an old Woodwind mouthpiece when he came to Cleveland and that he eventually broke it or wore it out. It may be apocryphal, but I've heard that he left his clarinet on the chair during a break. Sunlight hit an irregularity in a skyight, focusing the sun on the mouthpiece and melting it.

Whether or not that's true, Marcellus certainly experimented with mouthpieces in the 1950s and definitely said he recorded his amazing solos on the 1958 Russian LP (Polovtsian Dances, Capriccio Espagnole, Capriccio Italienne, Kovanshchina Prelude) on a crystal mouthpiece. Szell eventually asked him "Do you REALLY like the sound you get on that thing?" and he took the hint and switched to a Kaspar. See http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=140177&t=140108.

Ken Shaw

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2007-09-20 01:24