 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2021-06-03 05:37
Another thread made mention of one of my all-time favorite clarinet performances, Guy Deplus's marvelous recording of Messiaen's Abime des oiseaux. I've long wondered whether Deplus used circular breathing in the long molto crescendo whole notes, or did he manage them each on one breath?
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Author: prigault
Date: 2021-06-03 06:34
I cannot say for sure but I don't think he did. Firstly because circular breathing is typically not done on a static note (where it is very much harder to go unnoticed), secondly because it being a crescendo, the need for air would come toward the fortissimo part (where it is much harder still to go unnoticed), thirdly because it does not seem totally out of reach in terms of air capacity, what is more astonishing is the number of "f"s that he can stack upon one another towards the end of these crescendos.
For this recording, he was directed by Messiaen to play these crescendos for "as long as he could" (which in my opinion would imply under normal breathing conditions, not circular breathing), which ended up at about 30 seconds, much longer that what is written (the whole note at the written tempo of 44 to the eight note would be around 12 s). Now, the great thing about this is that doing it for 12 seconds is rather easy and if you want to do more, then regardeless of the time you manage to hold that crescendo, you end up performing just as exactly as Deplus did under Messiaen's direction: you just did it "for as long as you could" :-)
Post Edited (2021-06-03 06:36)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2021-06-03 17:05
Hi seabreeze, thanks for that link. Oshima's breathing during the single-note crescendos is, as prigault predicted, very audible in the sound of the note. (And to my ears not good.)
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Author: Paul Globus
Date: 2021-06-03 17:25
Guy Deplus was one of the great French players of his era. I heard him live a few times and as far as I could tell, he never did any circular breathing. Indeed, in those days, circular breathing -- and double tonguing -- were not considered mainstream techniques, as they seem to be today. And that's why so some many of us old-timers who first studied in the 1950s and '60s, have a difficult time learning them (people like Charles Neidich being the exceptions).
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