 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-11 13:32
Hi Ken!
Any early recording of Reginald Kell is great and expressive beyond what words can describe. The only trouble is that with age -and he stopped playing at a very early age-his playing became quirky. He lost many of his virtues and overdid his vices. I am especialy fond of his recording of the Brahms clarinet quintet with the Busch quartet; quite incomparable as far as I am concerned.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-12-11 14:08
Ruben -
I agree. For me, the Busch/Kell Brahms Quintet is the best ever. I also like a very rare Mercury LP of the Brahms Sonatas with Horszowski, which is much more expressive than his later recording with Rosen. Early on, he had major league fingers. Listen to his recording of the rather awful Holbrooke Quintet, where the technical address is dazzling.
I also agree that his later recordings became mannered. His Saint-Saens Sonata really misses the humor and drama.
He had a severe case of Alzheimer's, which I think cut short his career.
Ken Shaw
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-11 16:54
Ken,
I am wondering whether you studied with Mr. Kell. I had a teacher, a former student at Oberlin, who studied with him, but I don't know whether this was at Oberlin. Kell got decidedly paranoid in the US and felt rejected by the American clarinet community. According to him, they disapproved of his tone -namely, his use of vibrato- and style.. I read somewhere that he considered most clarinet performances boring and felt one had to develop one's individuality and expression. His heyday was, I suppose, the pre-war period in Britain.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-12-11 17:41
No doubts here, Ken. Thanks for the tip.
It's worth noting that, regardless of American classical players' attitudes towards Kell, jazz players have generally appreciated his work. Benny Goodman's Kell-mania is well known, but there are others. Pete Fountain has said that Kell was one of the few classical players to interest him.
In 1947, Artie Shaw played the Mozart Quintet live over WOR in NY (I have an aircheck recording--it's excellent). Afterwards, Benny Goodman told him that he "didn't disagree" with the performance. Shaw replied that he hadn't performed it to be disagreed or agreed with. That wasn't the point. Kell's music had the effect of impressing Shaw's perspective on me, emphatically, for which I'll always be grateful.
"Our playing should be as individual as our smile."
--Reginald Kell
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-12-11 23:00
ruben -
I didn't study with Reginald Kell (other than listening to his records over and over), but I met him when my high school orchestra played at the MENC in, I think, 1961. He was plugging his own B&H student line. I was so overawed that I could hardly speak a word to him, but he was very nice. For more, see http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=82015&t=81983.
I've read that he was an indifferent teacher. Everything came so naturally to him that it was difficult to break it down for a student who was having trouble. By the time he moved to the U.S., he was much more interested in fishing and painting.
Eric - I have the same Artie Shaw aircheck and love it. As a jazz player, he clearly understood the harmonic foundation, and his phrasing always made harmonic sense, unlike so many routine performances. Not to mention that he was a great musician with a beautiful, singing style.
Ken Shaw
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-12-11 23:33
Ken,
It was largely through your posts and those of a few others here that convinced me about a year ago to listen seriously to Kell's recordings. Like most Americans raised in the '80s, I'd heard more about him than I'd actually listened to his recordings (in fact, I'd never heard any of his recordings).
Without exaggeration I can say that it turned out to be very important for me to hear him--his playing compelled me to reexamine some rather basic assumptions of clarinet playing, and I've benefited a great deal by it.
Many thanks.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-12 10:46
As for the Artie Saw-Reginal Kell connection, the former termed Kell too "schmaltzy". His ideal was the Frenchman (born in Switzerland) Daniel Bonade, who lived in the US, taught at Julliard and played with the Philadelphia and I think, Cleveland Orchestras at one point. I know of no chamber music or concerto recordings by him. I know he played a wide-bore Leblanc clarinet as Kell played a very wide-bore Boosey and Hawkes clarinet. Both were into playing the clarinet in a very vocal way. Bonade was actually a frustrated singer.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: ruben
Date: 2012-12-12 10:46
As for the Artie Saw-Reginal Kell connection, the former termed Kell too "schmaltzy". His ideal was the Frenchman (born in Switzerland) Daniel Bonade, who lived in the US, taught at Julliard and played with the Philadelphia and I think, Cleveland Orchestras at one point. I know of no chamber music or concerto recordings by him. I know he played a wide-bore Leblanc clarinet as Kell played a very wide-bore Boosey and Hawkes clarinet. Both were into playing the clarinet in a very vocal way. Bonade was actually a frustrated singer.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-12-12 11:48
>>
"Our playing should be as individual as our smile."
--Reginald Kell
>>
"...and mostly not more individual than that."
--Tony Pay
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-12-12 12:25
ruben -
You can hear Bonade's orchestral playing on Larry Guy's great CD http://www.vcisinc.com/clarinetcds.htm item CD107.
I've seen a reference to a Leblanc Educational Recording called "The Daniel Bonade French-American Clarinet School" on which he's said to play the cadenza from Herold's Zampa Overture, but I've never been able to find it or discover more about it.
I'm pretty sure that Bonade played Buffets throughout his performing career. Certainly his students did. After his retirement, he endorsed the Leblanc LL, which was introduced around 1970. He was neither the first nor the last to let his name be used in connection with something he didn't use. See for example http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=378513&t=378513 and http://www.clarinetpages.net/clarinet-history/malerne. Even top orchestral players were paid peanuts at that time, and in retirement he undoubtably made considerably less.
Ken Shaw
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-12-12 12:40
Yeah, I don't really think there is much of an Artie Shaw-Reginald Kell connection. Paradoxically, though, Kell's playing drove home (for me) a very Shavian point.
I'd take Artie's criticisms of Kell with a grain of salt...remember the constant rivalry with Goodman and their "you say po-tay-toe, I say po-tah-toe" relationship. The quotes of Shaw's I've read or heard regarding Kell are almost inevitably related to questions about Benny.
Artie was brilliant, and alway quotable. He didn't always bother being consistent in his thinking though, and very, very often answered questions with a twinkle in his eye--especially when it came to other musicians.
[edit: One more point--I don't think it's accurate to say that Bonade was Artie's "ideal." He enjoyed Bonade's playing, and even suggested he prefered Bonade to Benny's classical favorites, but I think if you read enough material from Artie, you'll find he placed himself above Bonade--or at least suggested he was Bonade's equal. If pressed further, I think Shaw would have said his ideal clarinetist was in his own head, and he could never reach it.]
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2012-12-12 12:46)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2012-12-13 05:13
>> "...and mostly not more individual than that." <<
What do you mean by "mostly"? Why? I guess some smiles are also not so individual... except being on a specific face... and I guess both music and smiles are not very individual if compared with other smiles and music because they are "mostly" the same... I imagine you mean a difference of something essential, even if it's a very "small" thing? Maybe kind of like you only compare a Hanzo sword with another Hanzo sword (for those who watched that movie).
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2012-12-14 13:17
"Our playing should be as individual as our smile."
What you want to say very often strongly depends on to whom you are talking. I don't know where Kell's quote, above, comes from, or what audience he had in mind when he said it; but it would certainly mean different things to different people.
To some people, it might mean something like, "It's very important that our playing is individual," and that could be a useful thing to say to someone whose playing lacked all character, because it might start them down the road of wondering what sort of thing 'individuality of playing' might be, and where it might be found.
On the other hand, it might be counterproductive to someone whose attitude to music was that anything put in front of them was merely grist to the mill of their own personality.
Now, I have to say that the title of this thread irritates me, because it accepts a commonly held premise on this Bulletin Board -- namely, that the words 'good', 'bad', 'great', 'terrible' and so on are usefully to be applied in general to PLAYERS. It whoops up the cult of individuality, making blanket judgement of someone's musical personality more important than judgement of the various performances they give.
Whereas I, as many of you will know, think that those words are better applied to ASPECTS OF THEIR PLAYING on particular occasions. Then, by being used to characterise whether or not those aspects of their playing live up to the demands of the music to which they are applied, the words cease to be mere matters of opinion, and may start to attain the status of arguments.
Therefore, I want to add to Kell's remark, by balancing it out, so to speak. I want to call attention to another way of reading it, something like, "Even though we do all smile (on different occasions in different ways admittedly but for much the same sorts of reasons), our smiles have their own natural character and personality without our consciously interfering with them. And so, for the most part, should our playing."
Why 'for the most part'? Well, because there is some music that requires a more extreme, primadonna approach. In THOSE cases, we must seem unnatural.
Indeed, my own criticism of Kell's playing always applies to those performances in which he seems to prize his own individuality above all else, and in particular above the obvious requirements of the music. See the threads about the Stravinsky Three Pieces (and a bit about Hindemith):
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=247294&t=246795
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=248326&t=247148
...but only if you're interested.
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-12-14 14:45
Tony -
I reread your comments and found them, as always, interesting and insightful. I view the glass as half full. That is, I'm aware of Kell's flaws but still enjoy his musicality and impeccable technique. This is so even in the Stravinsky 3 Pieces, though he certainly strayed from what Stravinsky wrote. I listen to it the way I listen to Cortot's Chopin and Schnabel's Beethoven, ignoring the many mistakes to hear the musical understanding.
Kell's earlier recordings were not as burdened by mannerisms as the later ones. Have you listened to the early Mozart Concerto recording I linked to? If so, I'd value your thoughts.
Also, you have written that the first movement of the Mozart Concerto is substantially based on the falling third interval and that you hoped to write about your analysis. I found this very insightful, and I now constantly hear the falling thirds throughout the movement. Have you written up your thoughts? If so, I'd appreciate having them.
Ken Shaw
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2012-12-14 16:21
Tony,
I just read your thoughts on Kell's recording of the Stravinsky pieces, and think your analysis makes perfect sense. I'm one of those who finds Kell's interpretation of them riveting and compelling, rather than egotistical (of course it might be both, and we might be finding different aspects that are in their own ways true).
I did a write-up on the recording last March, if anyone is interested. In the post, I was attempting to scratch the surface of why I find it so effective:
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/2012/03/reginald-kell-2-stravinsky-three-pieces.html
I think you're right on the mark that Kell makes us "re-evaluate our criteria of judgement." He certainly did that to me, quite abruptly, last winter.
My comments on Kell remain my best guesses as to why his playing moves me so deeply. I don't experience his "take" as egotism, or perhaps it's better to say I don't experience them as mere egotism, but rather something I'd always hoped for in the pieces and hadn't yet found.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Bill
Date: 2012-12-14 22:57
Absorbing thead. Thank you.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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