 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2020-07-27 06:41
Beautifully done. To my ears he's superb in French music; his expressive choices are clear and felicitous, and never over done.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-07-27 09:35
It’s a pity that his throat notes are practically inaudible and that he’s too often drowned out by the piano.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2020-07-28 11:06
I haven't seen Ricardo for many years! His new setup is excellent. Switching horns, mouthpieces, but I'm not sure about his reeds, however his sound is so much better. It's not dark anymore! It's warm and simply beautiful, so well controlled throughout all registers. It's a huge sound now and he projects so well! Way to go Ricardo! What a joy to hear him play.
Check out this recording of him. It's powerful yet beautiful. Amazing playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oUxeI0wDSs
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-07-29 00:54
Bob,
I agree that Ricardo Morales has found a complex, ringing sound that is expressive and musical, lithe and flexible on a variety of Uebel clarinets (the Superior, Zenit, and Romanza models). He is one of several clarinetists today who are discovering, each in their own distinctive way, what could be called "the new resonance" or a path out of the dreary monotonic sound that some feel has been claiming the present generation of classical clarinetists. Some other players who have not succumbed to dark drabness: the soloist Seunghee Lee, who tours, and makes CDs that music lovers the world over buy and enjoy. Listen to her on Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Seunghee+Lee+Arpeggione. She used to play Guy Chadash clarinets, a Dan Johnston mouthpiece, and Vandoren V12 3.5 reeds. I'm not sure what she's using on this recording.
Another is the French virtuoso Nicholas Baldyrou. He plays mostly Buffet Legende clarinets with a Vandoren BD4 mouthpiece, but here he's playing a boxwood Buffet. Baldyrou has a light, crisp sound, enviable agility, and a remarkably accurate and rapid multitonguing capacity (to say nothing of his circular breathing ability.) Here he is on the Paganini Caprice No 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5jMRefOxfo.
One more is Ivan Villar Sanz, who has studied with Italian virtuoso Corrado Guffredi. Sanz has explored ways of getting the most interesting sound from his Backun MoBa clarinet, and in this duo for clarinet and bass clarinet, he really gets that usually round and soft sounding model to ring delightfully. He's playing a new Hawkins CG Vocalise model mouthpiece with a carbon fiber ligature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3OFxcjzREU.
I think that with players like these, each preferring different equipment and developing different styles, the clarinet is in good hands, and I find these performers of the present generation to be every bit as enjoyable as performers of the "golden age" like Cioffi, Wright, Marcellus, Gigliotti, Gennusa, Combs, etc. and probably a lot more versatile.
Post Edited (2020-07-29 07:14)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: DaphnisetChloe
Date: 2020-07-29 05:31
Seabreeze, who would you say has a dreary monotonous sound? There are hundreds of current professional clarinetists around the world with light, vibrant, focused (etc. adjectives) sounds. The small number of players who have very dark and covered sounds devoid of resonance are no doubt successful because of fantastic other qualities of their playing, but these players would be small in number!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-07-29 06:47
There's no point in singling out any player for criticism. I like to talk about players I do like and enjoy listening to. My post is simply responding to a widespread impression frequently expressed on this forum that compared to players of the late 50s and 60s, the tone of clarinetists in orchestras in America and many other places has begun to favor darkness, cover, and even some measure of dullness. I agree with you that for many players, that is not the case at all. And, in addition to my first example of Mr. Morales--especially in his most recent playing on Uebel instruments--I give three examples of outstanding players now active who have overtone rich sounds as evidence that there are many counterexamples. Of course there are many more players I could have cited whose playing is not the least dull or drab. Just to add two more, Sharon Kam and Julian Bliss.
However, as evidence that tone quality has darkened consider the fact that in the 1950s the Vandoren 5RV (or 2RV), which to most ears is a fairly bright sounding mouthpiece, was widely used in France as the mouthpiece of choice by both many professionals and students. Now, the Vandoren B40 and the BD5 have pretty much supplanted the 5RV as a "standard" orchestral mouthpiece in France and elsewhere, and Nick Kuckmeier proudly advertises on the Silverstein website that their mouthpieces are the "darkest" in the world. Would they do this if "darkness" were not fashionable today?
Another complaint one often hears is that players seem to have lost the distinctive differences they once had and we are heading towards a period of homogeneity in which everyone sounds nearly the same. The counter- examples I give, Morales, Lee, Baldyrou, and Sanz, show the inaccuracy of that notion. These four all get vibrant sounds but play on different equipment and do not sound at all alike. I would add that is true of many more players, including Kam and Bliss, and I have no doubt that you can add many more names to that list. The thrust of my post is that there are plenty of players today with great sounds and individual styles to listen to and enjoy, just as there were in the 50s and 60s. Those were not the "good old days," and we are not in some wretched period of the "bad new days" for classical clarinet playing. While I may not especially care for the general shift towards darkness, there are probably more excellent clarinetists today than ever before, so my intention is to celebrate, not condemn; and players today should be free to play as they wish, not be held back by old notions from the past that no longer fit the requirements of the present.
Post Edited (2020-07-31 18:10)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jeroen
Date: 2020-07-29 11:44
Nicholas Baldyrou has posted some video's on youtube where he plays with his class of students. Very high quality and entertaining :-). But what surprises me is that all of his students seem to sound the same... like clones of Baldyrou. Amazing actually.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ruben
Date: 2020-07-29 20:31
seabreeze: the clarinet Morales is playing is German, but is it a boehm-reform instrument? I would say it sounds like one.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-07-29 21:37
Ruben,
F. Arthur Uebel made Oehler system clarinets since the 1930s but I don't know if he or his company made any Boehm Reform instruments. Around 2006, the Uebel company decided to produce a line of regular Boehm system instruments
and they used Jochen Seggelke as a consultant. After measuring many Buffet clarinets, Uebel managed to produce a "Superior" model regular Boehm instrument with some bore and tone hole taper changes that give it a more Germanic sound. A couple of years ago, when Morales switched from his Backun MoBa clarinet to a Uebel Superior, that began a collaboration in which Morales has at various times performed on other Uebel regular Bohem models, including the Zenit and the Romanza. In the Kovacs Homage to Strauss video, Morales is playing the Uebel Romanza (with a Vandoren BD5D mouthpiece). I'm not sure which model Uebel he is using in the Schmidt work, but it is a regular Boehm, not a Reform Boehm. In the US one of the main sellers of Uebel Boehm clarinets is https://www.viennamusicus.com. They are the best source of information about Uebel Boehms and which Uebel instruments Morales is using, because he is directly associated with them (a team that includes Larry Frank and Gi Lee), actually works on some of the barrels, and provides feedback to Uebel for design improvements and modifications.
Post Edited (2020-08-31 04:14)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-07-29 22:17
We've also covered previously in other threads that Uebel is a German owned concern but much of their manufacturing is out of China. Therefore it may not be helpful to think of Uebel as a purely German company in the same manner as (for example) Wurltizer, a family run company out of Neustadt.
...................Paul Aviles
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
