 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-14 14:29
The late John McCaw, who played with the London Philharmonic and the the Philharmonia orchestra for many years, had -to my taste- the loveliest vibrato I have heard on the clarinet. When asked how he achieved this, he said it was just a natural consequence of singing the phrase and should not be considered a technique. Thus, he refused to teach it. He made very few solo recordings, but recorded the Nielsen and Mozart Concertos.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
Post Edited (2026-03-14 14:32)
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2026-03-14 19:17
Just wanted to vouch for the beauty of McCaw's Mozart & Nielsen concerto recording. Rosario Mazzeo, my teacher at the time it came out, raved about it to me.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2026-03-14 19:26
I completely agree with you Ruben. John McCaw’s playing presents for me the best vibrato I’ve heard in classical playing. Have you heard his solo at the end of En Saga by Sibelius? (Ashkenazy/Philharmonia Orchestra) It’s simply gorgeous.
I met John (or Jack as people also seemed to have called him) when I was 19 years old attending a chamber music course in the UK. Unfortunately I didn’t realise back then how much I would come to admire his playing. But he did give me some really good advice about my embouchure.
On that same course I also met Nicolas Shackleton, who kindly invited me to Cambridge, where I got to see his incredible collection of early clarinets and basset horns. Pretty amazing couple of weeks for an aspiring clarinetist!
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-15 00:08
Thanks for sharing these fond memories, Liquorice! Like you, John McCaw was from the southern hemisphere: New Zealand. To quote Muhammad Ali: "the southern hemisphere is a mighty big place." Also, so much for those for whom vibrato on the clarinet is taboo. It can be used beautifully. Why deprive oneself of it because of some unwritten rule?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-15 12:25
Mr McCaw never really had any clarinet lessons until he was playing professionally. His dad taught him as a child, and he was a Cornet player from a "Brass band" background (might not be a familiar term/concept for USA musicians)
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Author: JohnP
Date: 2026-03-15 13:28
I was told that the recordings of the Mozart and Nielsen concertos were done in one take.
Also I heard a story that once when Till Eulenspiegel was put on the stand at the last minute, Jack who was playing down the line at the start of his career, played the Eb part (actually the D clarinet part) on the Bb. Apparently he had learnt it in New Zealand where an Eb wasn’t so easy to come by. He came to teach at the RCM while I was there to replace Bernard Walton who had died tragically early. I made a stupid mistake not taking the opportunity to have lessons from him. I once heard him say his priority was to ensure that his students were on setups, i.e. instruments and mouthpieces, which he would be happy to play on in the Philharmonia, by which I think he meant instruments which were as well in tune as possible.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-15 14:29
JohnP: He himself worked on his instruments (Buffets and not Boosey and Hawkes 1010s, as were commonly used by British players in those days). His use of vibrato is very different from Jack Brymer's and Reginald Kell's: in my humble opinion, more subtle and less systematic.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2026-03-15 20:08
Agreed on the quality of McCaw's sound. I knew there were sadly few recordings of him outside of his orchestral work, so I was very pleased to discover recently that he made a 1973 recording of the Josef Holbrooke 2nd quintet for clarinet and strings:
https://soundcloud.com/user-561838364/sets/josef-holbrooke-clarinet
I think this is a fine piece, which deserves to be played more, and McCaw's version of it is exquisite.
Interestingly, I gather he shared a characteristic with Bernard Walton of playing on German-made Boehm clarinets. Clarinets direct is currently selling a pair of Hammerschmidts that, it is claimed, are what he used to make the Holbrooke recording. Apparently he only shifted to Buffets later in his career: S1's for orchestral playing, although I gather the Mozart/Nielsen disc is on R13. I thank Alex Allen for this information.
Post Edited (2026-03-15 20:23)
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Author: donald
Date: 2026-03-16 00:18
A friend of mine studied with him in the late 1980s, near the end of his career. He has a pair of R13s and two mouthpieces that were customised for him, apparently this took quite a lot of time and effort. Both McCaw and his old friend Frank Gurr would retune clarinets, including re-boring clarinet/mouthpiece if necessary. I've been meaning to spend some time examining/measuring etc these clarinets and maybe make an article in The Clarinet but never seem to get around to it. They sound amazing, but I've never played them myself.
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Author: Reformed
Date: 2026-03-16 13:43
I believe that at least earlier in his career, he used a B&H 926 mouthpiece - no doubt somewhat improved. A well controlled vibrato have developed very naturally in the London of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
The front of his Mozart/Nielsen LP which has a reasonably close view of the great man playing. The mouthpiece has distinct gold lettering but I can't make out any detail.
My first time hearing John live was an outdoor concert (1971?) of the New Philharmonia in (I think) London's Holland Park including Rimsky Korsokov's Scheherazade. John's sound floated out but there may have been amplification. Certainly had a huge Wow! factor to a teenager.
I was lucky enough to have a handful of private lessons with John in my Army years (76/77). John had a blow on my Jack Brymer 1010 mouthpiece and gave a very quick "not for me"!
I was struggling with dental problems at that time and had a device in my mouth to move my front teeth forward, prior to an operation to move my lower jaw forward. My take away from John was to analyse everything with an open mind, a stark contrast to my earlier teacher who was much more intuitive. Both were very fine players and musicians.
In one discussion, where John described how he analysed what he did to improve the throat Bb and decided that he had learned to "fork" the shape of rear of his tongue.
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