 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2015-07-06 22:49
Several years back, when I decided to focus 100% on jazz performance, I left behind certain gigs, including one that had me looking into various classical performance styles and traditions. One historical figure that I'd spent a decent amount of time with was Reginald Kell--I'd published several reviews of his work on my blog, which was then a catch all blog about clarinet matters, since renamed "The Jazz Clarinet."
As the years have progressed, coming back around to teaching, and I find that there is no substitute for a thorough classical training on clarinet--even if your goal is to be a jazz player. Because of this, the name Reginald Kell has come up again, and I've revisited his recordings.
Kell's place in jazz clarinet history is interesting, because his sound and technique--neither of which can be divorced from his musical personality--had such an impact. So for the sake of my students and anyone else who wants to read them, I've gone back and edited some of my reviews of Kell's recordings, which will be posted on The Jazz Clarinet.
The first I've put up is a review of Kell's recording of Mozart K581, on Decca. More will follow...Enjoy.
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/2012/03/review-reginald-kell-mozart-k581.html
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2015-07-06 22:57)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: brycon
Date: 2015-07-07 03:32
Eric,
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
(Of course, if you want more traffic, you may need to include a run-down of Kell's equipment--I'm dying to know, did he use a synthetic or a metal ligature????)
I just saw that the complete Decca set you mention is on Spotify; I'll be doing a lot of listening this week.
Just a few scattered thoughts:
1. Very interesting point on sonata-form. I'd like to back it up with a story once told to me by Carl Schachter. Schachter and some other musicians had been helping Murray Perahia with a recording session, listening to takes and giving feedback on what worked well/didn't work so well. On one of the minuet-type pieces, everyone concluded that the repeat of the A section wasn't up to par, so Perahia told the sound engineer to just duplicate the take of the first A section.
It turns out that the engineer had already done it--everyone had just listened to the take of the first A section tacked onto the end of the form. And it sounded wrong, despite sounding perfectly fine at the opening of the piece.
So I think you're right to say that sonata-forms require something from the performer. It's a very dramatic form, which is why it worked so well in Mozart's operas, and performers should be sensitive to how they treat the repetitions of the thematic/tonal areas.
2. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Deryck Cooke book. I'll only preface my own thoughts with a quote from Wimsatt and Beardsley's The Verbal Icon: "And the history of words after a poem is written may contribute meanings which if relevant to the original pattern should not be ruled out by a scruple about intention."
3. I like the distinction you make between curator and artist. I once played for a clarinetist in a fairly large US orchestra who told me that one should only play what's on the page and nothing more. I just can't believe that anyone with any knowledge of music could think this way.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2015-07-07 17:05
Thanks brycon--
The Perahia story is so tragically important for people to realize...it and those like it demonstrate the very real problem that musicians of our day and age have inherited. Real music making has been subjugated to mechanical reproduction of the score to the point that true artistry has been suppressed, for several generations. Audiences have been lost, etc.
Very thought provoking quote from The Verbal Icon--I'll have to look into that deeper. As far as Deryck Cooke is concerned, it's been several years since I've read him. My impression at the time was that his instincts were good in many ways, and that he was on to something, but that he tried to pull the net too tightly too soon with his theory. I found myself unconvinced he'd really broken the code he set out to, but that the issue was much wider. Still, he's from that era of British musicology that had a much more free-wheeling approach than what's happened since (crushed by materialistic analysis).
Today I've posted a review of Kell's recording of the Mozart K622. If you liked the discussion of the quintet, this might hold some interest as well:
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/2015/07/reginald-kells-mozart-clarinet-concerto.html
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2015-07-07 20:04
The Perahia story also shows the absurdity of the "jigsaw" approach to music making, in which each section is rehearsed so much that it is like a prefab construction of identical frames ready to be assembled by cranes, like the factory-made girders of a bridge. This type of total consistency must be what Emerson had in mind when he said foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
Music, like forest trees or flowers, is organic, breathing, floating, changing with every breath of air and sparkle of sunlight. Beyond a certain point, a complete musical performance cannot be rehearsed or even predicted. How each section "turns out" should depend on the shape the music takes in each previous bar and phrase. Tony Pay (and Deryck Cooke) are right about music being a language, ripe with metaphor and meaning. Performing musicians are in conversation with one another and, in some way, with the members of the audience as well.
On the Mozart Quartet recording, Kell does contribute to the "conversation" and sound spontaneous rather than flat and tediously predictable. His voice is that of a real person rather than a mechanical mannequin, and shows little of his often criticized tendency to overuse vibrato or play out of meter. In fact, the whole performance is sprightly metrical.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2015-07-07 20:35
The discussion of music and language (including music being analogous to language) predates both Tony Pay and Deryck Cooke by many, many centuries--there is a tradition of such analogy almost as old as music itself, and almost certainly as old as any serious discussion of song.
A quick look at the debates concerning language and its relation to music in the 19th century (paying attention to arguments posed by Mendelssohn, Wagner, and others) will serve to show just how lively the discussion can get.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2015-07-07 22:12
Two performers who have much to teach us clarinetists about lively response and communication in music are violinist Ivry Gitlis and pianist Wilhelm Kempf. Sibelius once said of Kempf that he played like a human being rather than just a pianist. Both Gitlis and Kempf put in the long hours of practice nevessary to develop excellent technique and attended carefully to the details of the score, but they went far beyond just doing that.
Post Edited (2015-07-07 22:51)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
