The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2016-03-14 10:02
The orchestra I'm in gets to play one of my favorites, but not until May. Rats... The Egmont OP 84. Never played it but I love the solos that the winds share back and forth. Well I looked around youtube and hours of searching I think I found my favorite recording with Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. It's such a well balanced hall. Every instrument is heard perfectly. Marcellus nails the solo's. I listened to several other recordings, but for my ears this was the best. I think it was recorded in Vienna? Not sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kFlERWZSTg
Any opinions? Am I missing any other recordings?
It's not a hard piece like his 9th Sym where you have to transpose the 3rd movement to the "C" clarinet 3/4's time and maybe C# major, can't remember the key signature. 0h, the notes fly by. Articulation is fast. It's wicked demanding piece and the piece is about 1 hour long. Well the Egmont is just so cool how some of the short 4 to 8 notes are repeated with various winds throughout the piece. Mainly just quarter notes and half notes. Sound quality and intonation is important. Am I crazy? Do others really like playing the piece? For me it fun to hear and fun to play! Bob
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: GBK
Date: 2016-03-14 11:01
I have the Cleveland orchestra recording that you referenced.
The SONY Classical Szell recording of the Egmont was done on Oct. 8, 1966 in Severance Hall, Cleveland.
...GBK
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2016-03-14 12:37
Thanks! Thats the one! How do you like it?
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-03-14 15:17
I played Egmont in my high school orchestra, which was up to it. I love the piece.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: rmk54
Date: 2016-03-14 16:19
It's not a hard piece like his 9th Sym where you have to transpose the 3rd movement ....
------------------------------------------------------------------
It's actually the second movement.
I'd rather play that movement all day long than the third (slow) movement. Now *that* is difficult - and tiring.
And then you have to play the fourth movement.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: kdk
Date: 2016-03-14 17:38
The 3rd movement is certainly the undoing of a lot of recordings, especially (and unfortunately) for the principal clarinetist. It's tiring and can (as many recordings attest) be a test of the player's pitch flexibility as the instrumental textures change.
Egmont is fun to play - several exposed, potentially beautiful, solos that aren't hard to play and a nicely constructed piece. I can't help with an ideal recording - Ive rarely heard one I thought was poor. But the performance I remember most was at a live concert in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia back in the early 1960s with Ormandy conducting and Gigliotti playing. The clarity of the sound from the orchestra in general and Gigliotti in particular was stunning enough that I still remember it over 50 years later.
Karl
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Nessie1
Date: 2016-03-14 18:44
We've played Egmont several times in our orchestra. As the usual second clarinet I always rather look forward to that point just before the final ?Allegro (or is it marked something else? but I expect you'll know where I mean) where there are some wind chords at the end of which I get to resolve a suspension all by myself.
A little limelight for the second (I find that most concert programmes we do have a few, this terms being the nice arpeggio -y bit in Capriccio Espagnol second movement) but also a great responsibility.
Vanessa.
Post Edited (2016-03-14 18:46)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
|