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Re: What are they playing in Amsterdam these days?

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-06-10 13:53

Liquorice wrote:

>> ....I do believe that there is a bias in Holland towards only getting Dutch players. This would perhaps be acceptable, if only they didn't pretend that they were actually open to international applications. Consider the last audition for principal clarinet in the Concertgebouw Orchestra....>>

If we're talking about auditions for orchestral positions, it seems to me that the Concertgebouw has every right to go for the style of playing that they want. That might well mean -- and in this particular case, I think it DOES mean -- that though the sound of the Reform Boehm clarinet players is preferable for them, there are nevertheless SOME players of other clarinets who come quite close to their ideal. And if one of those happened to audition, and if they also happened to be excellent musicians, they would be seriously considered for the job.

Throwing the audition open to non-Dutch players doesn't mean that someone who played like, say, Richard Hosford (who has a very different idea of sound) would be acceptable to them.

I was talking only a couple of weeks ago to an English colleague who had been invited to play with the Concertgebouw; and we agreed that anyone serious about the job would have to WANT to approach it with reference to the ideals of German-style clarinet playing.

And that's OK, because to my mind, and to his too, those ideals are not to be sniffed at.

These posts to the Klarinet list a few years ago might interest some of you -- the third one asks a question particularly apposite to the present discussion, I feel. They are all by me; but other people contributed to the thread, and some of what they said is reproduced in the quotes in my posts.

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/11/000232.txt

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/11/000278.txt

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/1999/11/000251.txt

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/05/000831.txt

http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2000/05/000889.txt

Tony

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