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Re: Yona Ettlinger & Pergolesi Cto

Author: Paul Globus
Date: 2023-06-29 21:49

Yona played on Buffet instruments, R13s as I recall. He had quite a collection given that he was some sort of a paid consultant for Buffet.

I once went with him to the Buffet factory in Nantes where he must have tried about 100 A clarinets in a single afternoon. He left with three or four instruments under this arm to test at home (this was just prior to his RCA recording of the Mozart Quintet with the Tel Aviv String Quartet). He played on a re-faced Selmer mouthpiece (HS **?) and Vandoren reeds (#3 or #3.5). His set up, which I played many times, was lighter than you would expect. I try to emulate it to this day.

A clue to Yona's exceptional sound and control might be something he used to admonish me about quite often. He would tell me to use "more air" but -- and this is the important bit -- to focus the air into the center of the bore. This is a fundamentally different concept than filling the whole bore of the instrument with air. It automatically forces you to support more (whatever that means), even though the idea of focusing the air into the center of the bore doesn't require much in the way of physical changes to the way you play. It's more of a mental thing. I have found over the years that it makes a huge difference. I would encourage everyone to give it a try.

Paul Globus

Post Edited (2023-06-29 22:04)

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