Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2011-01-01 15:33
Mark, you've based a couple of conclusions on premises that are questionable.
First, you can only guess - you don't know - what reeds all of those early 20th century players were using. You "can't imagine" that they were using anything harder than a VD3 because you know how anything harder feels on your equipment, especially your mouthpiece. But their equipment may well have been different. The reed and the mouthpiece are completely interdependent. To some extent the instrument also contributes to the level of functional resistance. Responsiveness isn't a function only of the reed.
I don't know whether stronger reeds became more popular at some given point or not. I know that the players who came from the Bonade-Curtis school here in Philadelphia played in general on close (somewhere within a narrow range of 1.00 mm), medium long facings with, generally, #4-#5 Vandoren reeds (there were only the thin blank "traditional" cut ones then). When Vandoren became periodically difficult to get they would all scurry for something similar until the shortage abated. Of the ones in this line of players whose reed habits were fairly well known, only Marcellus went in a different direction - to the thicker and more resistant Morre reeds that V12, Rue Lepic and the other thick-blank reeds of today were meant to emulate. But the main point in all of this is that I can't hear in the recordings of the period (1950s-90s) any evidence at all that the setups those mid-20th century players (the generation after the ones you were listening to) were using were in any way less responsive than those of earlier players. Mouthpieces and reeds changed together. To be sure there were subtle characteristics in the sound that each player was looking for, but responsiveness and tonal beauty were not among the sacrifices they were willing, as a rule, to make.
In any case, your account of the choice later clarinetists made among "tonal beauty, purity and stability" puzzles me. I don't myself hear that any of the three were systematically sacrificed and I'm not sure why any of those qualities is mutually exclusive of any other of them. In fact, I'm not sure in reading your post which are the alternatives to which.
When you say "I doubt they can play a Brahms sonata or Quintet with such fluent elegance and beauty like the ones I mentioned above," you're first of all expressing a simple opinion. But by saying "I doubt," you're also suggesting that you haven't listened to many contemporary players' performances of these pieces. One of the most refined, controlled, fluently elegant and beautiful performances I've heard of the Brahms F minor Sonata was given by Ricardo Morales in an after-concert mini-recital during his first season as Philadelphia's principal clarinetist. Morales is reputed locally (I'm not close to him and don't know personally) to use very resistant reeds on a more resistant mouthpiece facing than was ever popular here before his arrival.
You're certainly entitled to have opinions about all the performers you've listened to past and present. I think that the connection between reed strength and sound quality that you chose as a thread title is much more involved than your post recognizes and, if you're looking for useful conclusions about this connection, your thoughts may be going down an unproductive path.
My 2-cents' worth,
Karl
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