 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-10 10:49
Hi,
Does any body know cahuzac's setup and clarinet brand during the 1950's?
Thanks,
Rafi
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Author: ruben
Date: 2013-01-10 20:27
Pretty ordinary: Buffet (pre?)RC and Vandoren 5RV mouthpiece. Philippe Cuper, the great clarinetist of the Paris Opera, is the Louis Cahuzac biographer. He has recorded his music and has given lectures on him. He's too young to have studied with him, but his teacher did.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Buster
Date: 2013-01-10 21:54
Equipment is meaningless, but contact Eli Eban who studied with Yona Ettlinger who studied with Cahu if you want some empty answers. (You'll probably read Vandoren Diamond Perfecta at some point. I have one in my collection. I can say without hesitation that it is a clarinet mouthpiece...)
If you happen to dig up Stadler's clarinet at some point on your search let us know.... that may be more intriguing.
-Jason
Post Edited (2013-01-10 22:01)
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-11 08:11
Ok,
I did some digging and I found out that during the 1920's and early 1930's cahuzac played a 7 ring selmer Paris k series, also found out that cahuzac and Henri selmer were very good friends, they both studied with rose. I still don't know the 1950's setup.
My teacher studied for a long time with Yona Ettlinger and he said that cahuzac developed a different embochoure using peripheral muscles to release pressure from the reed, Yona studied that method and my teacher is teaching it to me right know, (it is hard as hell).
Cahuzac also had a special mouthpiece which later on passed to Yona, that explains their tone resemblance, my teacher said that he tried Yona mouthpiece and it was something else, it was deffently not a Vandoren.
Anyway I will keep on searching, I have some recordings of him from the 1950's and he is outstanding both in tone color and musical approach.
Thanks,
Rafi
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2013-01-11 08:31
Interesting information Rafi! Both Ettlinger and Cahazac were wonderful players.
Can you explain more about the embouchure using peripheral muscles?
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-11 09:58
It is hard to explain the system in English, I am not even sure I can explain it in Hebrew but I will try.
The idea is that every part in your face must be pressed hard againt the scull bones, like stretching a leather on a drum you need it to be tight in order to play it.
With cahuzac/Ettlinger embochoure you seal and apply pressure using your side muscles, upper muscles start from your chick bone going back to the jaw joint and lower muscles starts from behind the Lower lips and going back to the jaw joint, it is like a vise, (you can look at Yona Ettlinger smiling or playing pictures and you will see the muscles I am mentioning).
The upper and lower lips must be stretched against the bones but they serve as a sealing o-ring, later on you use them to achieve tone colors, such as nostalgic sound or clear valvet sound, (listen to Ettlinger recording if Brahms quintet 2nd chapter).
This system will make your sound to be extremely focused, clear and powerful without screaming. It will also let you conserve air.
Yona Ettlinger played Vandoren traditional cut number 5 hard reeds and he played long phrases without breathing that is the embochoure not his lung capacity.
I am still learning and working the muschels it is painful, my teacher tells me that it will take 4 to 6 mounts to get it right.
I will keep you posted, I am sure I am missing a lot of important data but once I will get it I will post a detailed explanation with pictures.
I hope it helps,
Rafi
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-11 10:19
My teacher told me that back then they used to joke that Yona can play on a Popsicle stick.
Rafi
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-01-11 13:00
The Selmer connection definitely makes more sense to my ear, though I'll be interested to know what you dig up on the 1950s setup.
Are trying this embouchure change while playing Wurlitzers, Rafi? Or are you working on an old Selmer? I have a friend (a pro) who says Cahuzac was always his ideal player, but paradoxically, the closest he can get to that sound concept is on a Wurlitzer. I personally would try to go with an old French clarinet and do the embouchure exploration you seem engaged in...with the caveat that embouchure doesn't always work the same way on different people, and I'm very reluctant to endorse high-pain embouchures.
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-11 13:35
I am playing my wurlitzers exclusively, the idea is that once you do it correctly your skull inner cavities such as your sinuses contribute to the sound.
The pain is temporary, (I remember the pain in my lips when I started playing), until the muschels develops.
This embochoure is NOT exclusive to French horns, Yona Ettlinger used to play Fritz Wurlitzer (until he got the mouthpiece from cahuzac and changed to Buffet continental because of tuning problems with cahuzac's mouthpiece), my teacher is playing Yona's old FW horns with this embochoure and he sounds amazing, much much better then must players around and he is almost 70 years old.
For me the most important thing is my sound color, I love to sing with my clarinet and the Wurlitzers have the best and most sound colors, I have a big collection of French horns, recently I got a boosey & hawkes prewar pair very nice but nothing like The Wurlitzers.
Rafi
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-01-11 14:14
Fascinating, Rafi.
I think I understand the embouchure pain you're describing: sometimes building the right muscle is fatiguing and makes you ache. That happened when I was forming my embouchure in my teens and my finger technique as well--and both were temporary. Some folks develop chronic pain by playing in an unnatural way (and that's what I worry about when people mention embouchure pain), but that doesn't seem to be what you're describing.
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Paul Globus
Date: 2013-01-11 14:57
I suppose I should weigh in here, given that I both studied with Yona Ettlinger and knew him as a friend, right up until his untimely death at age 56 back in 1981. I also played on his set-up a number of times.
When I knew him, Yona played on Buffet R13s, and his main mouthpiece was a an old Selmer HS* that I believe had been refaced (he told me that Louis Cahuzac played on Selmer instruments and mouthpieces; Yona himself played on Selmer instruments when he was a student and a young professional, he told me; Selmer was the leading brand back then, even when I first playing seriously in the 1960s, Selmer was king).
To accommodate his upper teeth, Yona had some sort of a material built up on the top of the mouthpiece. Everything else about his embouchure looked normal (whatever that means). I could play his set-up because I play double lip, which didn't phase Yona one bit. As far as he was concerned, it was the result that mattered, not how you got there. His focus, with me at least, was first and foremost on the music and on what you might be trying to say (if you had no idea of what you were trying to say, your standing in his eyes would drop rather precipitously). On the mechanical level, he talked much more about air and support than about embouchure, per say.
I don't know where the hard-reed myth started but I found Yona's set-up to be very easy blowing. Everything was just "there." No forcing required. I have no idea what strength reed he used because he had reeds in his apartment in Paris of every strength. I once went with him to Vandoren to try reeds and he was playing on everything from 2.5s to 5s, all on the same mouthpiece. You couldn't tell from one moment to the next what he was using. That pure sound, that perfect control, that flexibility ... that was him.
A true story. I was working on the Brahms Quintet with Yona. I played the "staccato" variation in the last movement for him. Why did you choose that type of articulation, he asked. Huh? I was silent because I didn't know what to say. I had played it the only way I knew how, at the time. Play it again with another type of articulation, he said. I tried and fell all over myself. He proceeded to demonstrate, playing the variation five or six times in a row, each time with a distinctly different type of articulation. I was dumfounded. I subsequently attended a rehearsal of the Quintet with Yona and the Tel Aviv String Quartet. Before the last movement, they took a break and Yona told me that he was going to play the staccato variation with a very different type of articulation than he had on his previously made recording of the piece because the hall where they would be playing required it. He did so. It was very different from the recording but equally beautiful. That was Yona Ettlinger.
Eli Eban is indeed someone who would be able to tell you more about Yona Ettlinger. Also James Campbell. Eli and Jim teach at Indiana. They are both real gentlemen who I am quite sure would be happy to answer any questions you may have. They are also superb players / musicians in their own right.
Paul Globus
Montreal, Canada
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Author: Buster
Date: 2013-01-12 01:05
To think Cahu played all that horn on K Selmers with a Selmer, or Vandy, mpc depending on who is talkin.
Get thee to a woodshed!
Equipment is meaningful to the performer when they are utilizing it; empty and meaningless when it is sleeping in its case.
I'll take mind over matter any day in cases such as these....
-Jason
Post Edited (2013-01-12 14:35)
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2013-01-12 03:38
I believe there is room in this world for different approaches. If you want to a be an equipment geek that's fine. Buy 100's of mouthpieces. If you want to be totally mind over matter and discount equipment that's fine. Any place between these two extremes is also fine. People are different. You can achieve success with any of these approaches.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Buster
Date: 2013-01-12 04:21
As you wish John.
-Jason
Post Edited (2013-01-12 14:36)
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-12 06:12
Paul,
Very interesting, I talked to Neomi Ettlinger, (Yona's wife) and she said that Yona set up was a buffet R13 Bb and a buffet continental A.
The Brahms recordings he did with the continental.
The thing he glued to his mouthpiece, I talked to my teacher, (his name is Rafi Bracha) and he said that during the period in which you adjust to the new embochoure you glue an acrylic spacer around 1.5 cm to 2cm for placing your teeth that way you stretch the upper lip thus minimizing its influence, he was surprised I asked him about it, he told me that in a month or two he will make me a spacer like that.
By the way have any of you ever played or seen that?
Why stretching your upper lip like that unless you use peripheral muscles to compensate, just food for thought.
I wanted to take his picture while playing, his muscles really stick out but he refused so google Eli Heifetz, he is another outstanding clarinet player who was also Ettlinger student, he played principal clarinet for the Israeli chamber orchestra for 40 years, look at the picture in which he play in the orchestra and see what I mean, (I could post it but I don't know if I can legally).
Rafi
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2013-01-13 15:56
(You can't fool me, J--I know you'd give half your mouthpiece museum just to try Cahuzac's set-up for 30 minutes. You're just stirring the pot. How'd you get that large a pot near my shed?)
E.
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: Rafi
Date: 2013-01-14 09:17
After all that has been said, I still don't know Cahuzac setup during the 50's.
R
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