 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2026-05-21 04:00
At age 73, I'm in the process of reducing my cd collection (and ditto for books). I'll listen to a cd all or part of the way through and decide whether I'll be likely to enjoy it again in the time I have left. The culls are donated to individuals or to a local 2nd hand shop (where I'm liable to buy more cd's or books if I'm not stern with myself.)
Yesterday I listened Bernstein & the NY Phil playing Beethoven's 6th from 1963, marvelously played and marvelously recorded (on Sony.) There's a lot of woodwind passages in that piece, and Drucker (I assume) sounded terrific. In the 3rd movement there's a solo that takes the theme up to a held note and then in a fast articulated arpeggio back down. Drucker crescendos on the top note - soars - and then plays the articulated arpeggio boldly and brilliantly, sounding natural as breathing, like control wasn't even necessary. It worked really well. I had to keep that cd (though the other music on it, the 8th symphony and King Stephen overture, both were less well recorded and, despite earnest efforts, sort of emotionally flat.)
That led me to see if there's a video on YT of those forces in the 6th. Instead, I got sidetracked to watch a video performance of the same symphony, again with Bernstein, but this time conducting the Boston Symphony. No date is given, but Harold Wright is the clarinetist, and the video mix spends a lot of time on him. His sound is magical in this, the sort of sound that you just keep wanting to hear more of. You can hear it pretty much any time Wright is playing, even through the massed ensemble at times. Bernstein seems very focused on Wright, too, more than the other soloists - he watches him, conducts him with little flairs, and smiles when he plays. Interesting. The same 3rd movement solo, however, Wright plays altogether differently than Drucker, quieter, actually diminuendoing, with the arpeggio barely heard, and the articulation hard to detect. A gorgeous performance overall, different in character to the NY Phil version.
Incidentally, the camera shots reveal that when Wright starts to play a passage, his bow tie appears to raise up. He's doing something with his throat muscles when he plays. I don't see that effect from the other clarinetists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2VY33VXnrQ
So: tomorrow during practice, I intend to sound like Wright but articulate like Drucker.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2026-05-21 04:49
They were two gifted players with different approaches to tone production (and articulation). It would be hard not to hear the differences in an A-B comparison, but also hard if not impossible to rank them as clarinetists.
I would think Drucker's recording is well worth keeping, although I wonder if it's also available on YouTube if you keep looking, which might allow you to give away the physical CD.
Karl
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