Author: echi85
Date: 2017-08-01 05:18
I think we are conflating two separate issues. One is the price, and subsequent justification of price, of newer equipment and the other is a tonal trend. They can be some correlation, but I don't think there is any causation. That is to say that more expensive equipment does not equate to darker sounds.
I would also like to clarify that the trend I see is a shift towards darkness, not necessarily dark. If anything, more players are erring towards more middle partials and fewer higher partials. Only a few are choosing to really deaden the sound.
Absolutely manufactures are paving the way towards the darkness, but it's not a deliberate attempt to change clarinet playing. Manufactures, like Vandoren, are simply giving players what they want. For example, the principal clarinetist in the l'orchestre de Paris was playing a Kuckmeier mouthpiece that he really loved. Vandoren heard about it and came out with the BD5 which emulates that style of mouthpiece (which also kept him as a Vandoren artist). You can hear him talk about it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GlmYb56NI
Subsequently it has carried over into the states with two major principal players using the BD5. Anthony Mcgill and Boris Allakhverdyan both use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyXm0__laLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hZQq3usZ0o
Jon Manasse, who is on the faculty of Juilliard, also has been using the BD5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXdBScK_69Y
http://www.vandoren-en.com/MANASSE-JON-USA_a254.html
Even Bill Hudgins, who I consider to be the last bastion of old school clarinet playing has shifted in this direction. He plays principal clarinet in the Boston Symphony. He is currently playing Buffets and using a Behn mouthpiece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okTYQIOUb3Q
All of these players teach and are in demand. If this sound is going to be a short term thing, I would like to see some evidence of it otherwise. Please understand, I would never be caught dead using a BD5 as it goes against nearly everything I believe a clarinet should sound like. Nevertheless, this is the reality we live in. Side note, all of these players play Buffet.
Ricardo Morales is an interesting player. My favorite Ricardo recording is him when he was at the MET playing the Gran Partita:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilsMzPJNd50
From what I understand, he was using Buffet RC Prestiges and a Pyne mouthpiece, not unlike the mouthpiece Stephen Williamson currently plays. I think it's the best I've ever heard Ricardo sound, but I think he understood the need for something else, something new. The shift to Backun, I believe, was an attempt at innovation. A new kind of clarinet sound. You can hear him do the opening of the third movement of Shostakovich 9 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWdbkx7aZNo
Also some more recent solo playing here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NyllIAiT20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--qgwByJK3A
I also find it particularly interesting that he is choosing to use Legeres, which have a significantly warmer sound that cane reeds, on his crystal mouthpiece. If he were really looking for a pingy sound, would he be using synthetics?
I think it's a flaw of human nature to think that everything was better in the past. The days when men were men etc.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single employed professional clarinetist who is playing a Buffet from the 1960s. Please enlighten me if I am wrong. Almost everyone I know plays models made in the last 20 years. I imagine most clarinets from the 1960s happily sit in people's collections, not on stage every night.
I own a few Kaspar mouthpiece and have tried a whole lot of them. I have used them professionally but I personally don't think they fit modern clarinet playing. These will always sell for a high price because the supply is so limited. The supply of good Kaspars even more limited. As much as I hate to say it, many of the top American players choose to use Vandoren and Buffet products. I don't like it but it is the world we live in.
Just to cap it off, there was a recent study done on violins comparing Stradivarius violins vs modern ones. You can read about it here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/08/527057108/is-a-stradivarius-violin-easier-to-hear-science-says-nope
I think we should respect and be thankful for the past, but we should not want it to be the present.
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