 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: musica
Date: 2014-01-20 19:04
Just getting some ideas on 3rd mvt
Cadenza in Scherezade & remembering
Tanglewood performance this past
July where William Hudgins played
the cadenza. I always have
heard very rushed frantic sounding
interpretations of this cadenza &
after listening to archived concert
I really liked this interpretation.
Wondered if anyone knew of
a Harold Wright with BSO recording?
or maybe this might be close to
his interpretation since he studied
with him?🎵
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Author: Brad Behn
Date: 2014-01-20 15:30
Bill is a model of the ideal orchestral citizen. He has the most beautiful sound - focused, pure, rich, and never forced. His sound is distinct and sings out with that beautiful Wright-esque ring, which very few can achieve. Wright's influence is obvious in Bill's playing, yet Bill's artistry should be appreciated on its own merits.
Bill's playing is inspirational.
Brad Behn
http://www.clarinetmouthpiece.com
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Author: duxburyclarinetguy
Date: 2014-01-20 21:12
In fact there is a Deutsche Grammophon recording #2530 972 with Seiji Ozawa conducting. It was recorded in April of 1977 in Symphony Hall and released on vinyl in 1978. Not sure if it has been re-released on CD. Harold Wright is playing on this recording and sounds great as one would expect. Having studied with Harold Wright and having been a classmate of Bill Hudgins, I agree with Brad's assessment.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-01-20 23:14
On the following archived site, William Hudgins can be heard performing the Copland Clarinet Concerto with Courtney Lewis conducting the Discovery Ensemble of Boston a couple of years ago: The Copland is the last piece performed, after Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun.
http://www.wgbh.org/includes/playerPop.cfm?section=1&featureid=41791.
Hudgins floats above the strings with a tone so resonant there is no need to "cut" through as so many other clarinetists try to do. His articulation is equally soft-edged yet distinct and never sounds tight, overly short, or pecky as many others do in this piece. He flexibly bridges the wide intervals from altissimo to chalumeau without hesitation and his sound is remarkably consistent throughout all registers, neither paling in soft passages nor becoming guttural in louder ones.
Overall, this is probably my favorite performance of the Copland--a most musical and controlled one, The few tiny finger flubs do not detract; they would have been edited from a commercial CD.
Hudgins needs to do more recordings of solo clarinet works. He may well approach the timbre idea the designers of the Buffet R13 had in mind. I would love to see how he would sound on 1) a Wurlitzer Reform Boehm; 2) a Leitner Reform Boehm; and 3) a grenadilla Backun Mo-Ba. Would he approach the tonal ideals embodied in those three very different designs as well?
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2014-01-20 18:43
He would likely sound much the same with any make and model . When I played my $18 metal no-name clarinet in ninth grade orchestra , eons ago, the director stopped us to tell me that was the most beautiful timbre he heard in many years. Hard to believe; but Raymond Adams, playing his beat-up metal clarinet in the Allentown Band, really did have a beautiful timbre. Thanks for the tip. Best performance of it I have heard.
richard smith
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2014-01-21 01:40
I have been extremely impressed in the past with the very little that I've heard of William Hudgins. It would be great if he did some solo recordings. Looking forward to hearing his Copland. Thanks for posting.
Post Edited (2014-01-21 01:41)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-01-21 02:22
Yes, he does so many things right and avoids so many wrong ways of playing this piece that often ruin it. He captures the Appalachian Spring lyricism of the slow parts and plays the cadenzas naturally. He doesn't inject pseudo-jazz phrasing or make a circus act of it. Nothing is more ridiculous than for a player to turn this concerto into a vehicle to show off circular breathing counter to its vocal flow and phrasing (vocalists breathe between phrases), or to demonstrate the shortest and loudest staccato on record, interspersed with Dayton Beach race car speeding and double tonguing toward a great crash of a conclusion.
Hudgins makes music out of the piece, and it is first for his music and second for his wonderful clarinet skills that the listener will remember the performance.
He also manages to make himself heard, if I am not mistaken, on a mouthpiece with a tip opening of just around 1.0 mm.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2014-01-21 03:44
I had the pleasure of hearing Hudgins (with the BSO Chamber Players) perform in the 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring a few years ago, as well as the Mozart Serenade K.361 on a regular BSO subscription concert.
In my opinion he is the most under-rated clarinetist around. As great as he sounds in recordings, he is even more impressive in person.
Having had the privilege of also hearing Marcellus in person, I would be hard pressed to say whom I liked better.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2014-01-21 15:09
Awesome - going to check out Bill's Copland. I played with his Wife Kathy at the Marcellus Scotia Festival in 1988. They were playing the Charlottesville, S.C. Symphony at that time.
As dismal as the pay was there, it was the equivalent to making $80K in Chicago she said.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2014-01-21 16:19
It's interesting the way some players perform these cadenzas. Many years ago i wrote a series of articles titled "Orchestra Comparisons", I think that's what I named them, for the Clarinet Journal. I compared 4-5 different recordings of clarinet solos explaining the differences the way the clarinetist performend them. I also explained that sometimes the way a player interpreted a passage such as these candenzas, or any solo passage for that matter, was not always the way the player would have liked to play it. Having been in a major orchestra all my life I can say for certain that sometimes a conductor makes a player perform a solo passage much differently than they would play it or teach it. These cadenza's were a perfect example. One orchestra, I believe it was the Concertgebouw orchestra with a well known conductor, did these cadenza's painfully slow. Almost no acceleration and very dull playing. I mean slow. On the other hand the NY Philharmonic recording at that time was extremely fast, I mean extremely fast. Sometimes it's the player, sometimes it's not.
I remember once years ago, in the Pines of Rome, our principal player at the time after being told to do something different in one of the big solos, whispered to me, that's not the way it's played, who ever does it that way. Well, he had too. :-)
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2014-01-30 02:10
Here is Mr Hudgins in the #1 orchestral excerpt piece, Beethoven Pastorale.
http://www.wgbh.org/programs/The-Boston-Symphony-Orchestra-in-Concert-1641/episodes/Fruhbeck-Conducts-Beethoven-Neikrug-and-Falla-48399
There is also a nice Brahms 3 and Enigma varations on the site. Some of the clarinet playing may be from Thomas Martin (another fantastic and underrated player) but I'm pretty sure these are Mr. Hudgins.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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