 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2020-09-18 17:11
I will answer my own (rhetorical) question: a loud, emphatic "yes". I imagine the reason for this is the large size of most modern concert halls. In addition to this is the fact that we live in a noisy, high-decibel environment. Yet the two clarinetists I most admire here in France: Philippe Cuper and Pascal Moraguès, are not loud, raucous players. Nor were Harold Wright or Yona Ettlinger.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: ACCA
Date: 2020-09-18 17:29
Great question. This may be a trend. But there are certainly notable exceptions out there. I attended a concert last Feb (remember when we were allowed to actually go to those?!) with Emma Johnson playing the Weber and Malcolm Arnold concertos (no2 both). I was surprised actually how quiet she played on both numbers.
But count me in among those who just like to play loud!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-09-18 18:32
ruben wrote:
> I will answer my own (rhetorical) question: a loud, emphatic
> "yes". I imagine the reason for this is the large size of most
> modern concert halls.
Are the newer halls in Europe larger than those of the late 19th and 20th centuries? I don't think that's the case in the U.S.. They were already pretty big. I could be wrong.
> In addition to this is the fact that we
> live in a noisy, high-decibel environment.
But, so far at least, all that noise (including the over-amplification now ubiquitous in American theaters and commercial/pop/rock concerts in any venue) is left behind in "classical" concert halls. Modern orchestras, at least American ones, can count on a quiet, peaceful physical space when they play.
> Yet the two
> clarinetists I most admire here in France: Philippe Cuper and
> Pascal Moraguès, are not loud, raucous players. Nor were
> Harold Wright or Yona Ettlinger.
>
I'm not sure that Stanley Drucker in his younger days, particularly in Bernstein's years with the NYP, didn't have a reputation for loud and sometimes crass playing. But LB's Philharmonic was always noted more for its aggressive exuberance and musical adventurism than for polish. I think both Bernstein and Drucker mellowed as they aged.
I suspect the answer to your question is that it depends on which players you mean. A basic problem with comparing how loud players played "then" (whenever that was) and now is that you need to compare "apples to apples" - you can't compare players' volume in person during live performance to the volume level you hear in recordings. Most of us only get to hear a few local players and maybe a player occasionally in a touring ensemble that passes through our area. Excepting my teachers and a dozen or so section colleagues I've played with locally, almost all the clarinetists I've ever heard were on recordings. Maybe you have more opportunity to hear in-person performances than I do and you *can* make more meaningful comparisons.
Two specific examples from my own personal experience here in Philadelphia:
Anthony Gigliotti, my major teacher in college and a contemporary of Wright, Drucker, Marcellus, etc. coined the term BTSOOI (Blast The **** Out Of It) to describe how loud he sometimes had to play to satisfy Eugene Ormandy (the Philadelphia Orchestra's conductor until the early 1980s). When he tested a new reed, his first few notes could have peeled paint off the walls. He did make a tuning bar on the other side of his teaching studio resonate. I have to assume there were times in the orchestra when Ormandy called for that kind of volume and Gigliotti needed to be sure his reeds could produce it. But I can't say whether Gigliotti played louder than the European players I heard regularly on the major record labels of the last century. He didn't (still doesn't) sound any louder than others when I listened to Philadelphia's recordings.
The primary complaint - for some admirers the only complaint - made about Ricardo Morales by Philadelphia Orchestra listeners is that he plays too softy and doesn't project well, at least in the context of that orchestra in Verizon Hall. I've seen him play very soft passages that I couldn't hear because his idea of pianissimo is sometimes barely audible on the stage and inaudible from my 2nd tier seats. Verizon Hall isn't the Academy of Music, where you could literally hear a pin drop from the 3rd balcony.
So, there are two examples that don't fit your theory of louder playing among today's players. Are they simply exceptions? In the end, I'm not sure you can establish a trend, but the only evidence on which I could base an opinion would be recordings, on which no one ever sounds too loud or too soft if the recording engineers are competent.
Karl
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Author: ruben
Date: 2020-09-19 01:29
Karl: The seating capacity of most of the recently-built concert halls in Europe is usually within the range of 3000 to 3500 seats, as is also the case for opera theaters. This is considerably bigger than the 19th century shoe-box halls (Musikverein in Vienne, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Victoria Hall in Geneava; all great halls, that seat about 2000). I work for a clarinet maker and when most people come into our workshop these days, I find they blast away. How can an instrument be tried out in such a fashion? As for Mr. Gigliotti-a clarinetist I admire, I hasten to add- a bassoonist with whom both you and I often played with, claimed Gigliotti ruined his tone by playing out and that this was Ormandy's fault for requiring this of him.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: ruben
Date: 2020-09-19 01:31
Louder than soloists, principals and chamber clarinetists of the past.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-09-19 02:21
Putting Gigliotti's reasons for choosing his equipment to provide a lot of bang for the buck and our mutual friend's opinion of the effect of those choices aside, the fact is that Gigliotti is, I assume, included in your "then" and that Morales is certainly included in anyone's "now." I'm not sure you make a trend out of louder playing without cherry-picking the players you use as exemplars. You hear a lot of noodling in your shop, but do those players blast the same way when they're in their ensembles? I just don't know.
How loud did the players of the late 19th century play? How loud were the clarinetists who first performed the symphonies of Mahler and the tone poems of Strauss? Except for anecdotal reports, we'd have no way of knowing, and the contemporary reporters would not have had the same frame of reference we have today.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-09-19 03:04
Speaking for myself, if trying to compress a trial into as little time as possible, I lean on the loud side. My rationale is that you can always play softer (that's easy) but your top end is represents the limit of your dynamic palette. It's just down and dirty that way.
I have a "loud" story though that may (or may not) be interesting. In my youth (while still in high school) I equated loudness with shear physicality and thus had gone to open mouthpieces and hard reeds. While still a high school student we had an alumni orchestral event that brought in the principal clarinet of the Detroit Symphony at that time, Mr. Paul Schaller. For those not acquainted with Schaller, he was of the same era and ilk of Robert Marcellus, Clark Brody and Anthony Gigliotti. I sat next to him and played second part to his first for a for a performance of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italian. Besides thinking that was heretofore the most gorgeous and flawless playing I had ever heard, he played at least twice as loud as I, and I could not believe that that volume was even possible on the clarinet.
For what that's worth.
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2020-09-19 03:54
I'm not sure we can even answer that question since we don't have measurements of players from the past and current players in the same setting. Yes, we do have to play louder in the many halls that are larger than the typical venue of the past. Yes, I think we sometimes play louder when amplification is in the mix and we are trying to hear ourselves and others. I think the idea is to be able to play "loud enough" when required and to be able to adjust no matter what the setting. I remember playing the 2nd movement of Weber I for a master class for Mitchell Lurie when I was young. He commented how I was playing quite softly but could be heard from the back of the hall. The hall wasn't super big and was mostly empty, so this was easier to accomplish.
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2020-09-19 18:41
I seem to remember Jack Brymer, the famous English clarinettist, saying (it may be in one of his books) that working under some conductors was like ‘orchestral navvying’. This would have been in the 1970\80s. Navvys were the Irish immigrant labourers who hand dug the London docks and canal system in England. I believe volume expected of players, with the necessary physical effort that required, was the main issue.
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Author: lmliberson
Date: 2020-09-19 23:18
In regards to Mr. Gigliotti's "volume" - many years ago, when the Philly Orchestra was still the orchestra-in-residence at the Ann Arbor May Festival, he was scheduled to perform the Hindemith Clarinet Concerto (which, for reasons unknown to me, did not happen). I asked a friend of mine (a Detroit Symphony Orchestra clarinetist) if he might be going to the performance. His reply was "No, I'm just going to listen to it from my front porch."
Of course, he lived around fifty miles from Hill Auditorium!
In regards to Paul Schaller - he was both a teacher of mine and, following that (with a few years in between), a friend and colleague in the DSO for the last six years of his career. And, yes, he could play loud - very loud. But, also, incredibly soft - and beautifully. And in a crummy hall, to boot!
If you can find them, there are a couple recordings (the DSO with Dorati) in particular that gives you a hint as to how fine a player - loud and soft! - he was: A lovely extended solo in Bartok's "Two Pictures" and the big clarinet sections in "The Miraculous Mandarin", all of which were done in one take!
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2020-09-20 02:57
Isn't it also a question of how loud the orchestra is? If the orchestra is loud - whatever that means - the soloist must play out.
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Author: Nitram
Date: 2020-09-20 04:00
Projection, not loudness, is what will carry the sound clearly to the end of the hall.
Focus of sound and “ ping” is what is needed.The obsession to produce a “dark”and often hollow sound is what kills the ability of it to carry to the last rows.
Ping was not an issue for the likes of Wright, Gigliotti,Drucker, Marcellus.
Post Edited (2020-09-20 08:26)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-09-20 04:04
Bennett wrote:
> Isn't it also a question of how loud the orchestra is? If the
> orchestra is loud - whatever that means - the soloist must
> play out.
I'm not sure if you're thinking of soloists as concerto performers or as principal players playing solo passages. If the orchestra is loud, it's because the players in it, including necessarily the principals, are playing loud, largely because that's what the conductor demands.
I suppose a visiting soloist is to some extent at the orchestra's mercy, but good orchestras and orchestral players are perfectly capable of playing softly when they need to. And in my experience the sentences most often spoken by conductors when working with a soloist are "It needs to be softer. We're covering the soloist."
Karl
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Author: Ursa
Date: 2020-09-20 20:47
Quote:
Projection, not loudness, is what will carry the sound clearly to the end of the hall.
Focus of sound and “ ping” is what is needed. The obsession to produce a “dark” and often hollow sound is what kills the ability of it to carry to the last rows.
Ping was not an issue for the likes of Wright, Gigliotti, Drucker, Marcellus.
Hear, hear! This has been my observation since first becoming serious about the clarinet.
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Author: EbClarinet
Date: 2020-09-21 04:22
R u talking marching band loud or inside "loud?" Then there's the recording studio as well.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/mbtldsongministry/
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Author: Nitram
Date: 2020-09-21 17:12
Quality of sound is the same whether inside or outside. Of course volume of sound will die out faster outdoors( marching band on street for ex)more than in a concert hall.
On recording , studio quality of sound can be captured( ping, hollowness, focus, etc) but volume is not an issue at all.It will be adjusted by the people at the recording console.
Post Edited (2020-09-21 18:28)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2020-09-21 17:32
What?
This was sarcasm. Everything music wise has got louder over the decades. I know this is about clarinet player but have you been to a wedding or similar affair where the band plays so loud it's ear bursting? Loud,louder and even louder. And recordings rarely if ever sound like a live player. So yes, I believe everything is louder.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2020-09-22 17:20)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-09-21 20:28
yeah.......we (recording engineers) do a LOT of "adjusting."
[ok, I don't want to leave it at that.....sounds too snarky. But the reality of professional recordings is that NOT ONE of the commercially available recordings of anyone is just a window onto the performance. There is quite a bit of manipulation of the sound. But the justification is that what we all expect, is a recording that is as exciting and fun as a live performance. Since the recording process itself is rather artificial, many things need to be done just to get things up to acceptable. The analog I'd offer would be the contrast between some picture you just snapped on your phone compared with a photo you see in National Geographic. I'll bet anything you'd pick the National Geographic photo. And those guys do just as much to capture and manipulate in post as we do.]
.............Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2020-09-21 21:18)
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