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Re: New Stanley Drucker interview

Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-02-17 04:48

Joffe is right that Drucker raised the bar for clarinet technique. I can remember when it was taken for granted that anyone reckless enough to play the Nielsen would be given some slack in the parts that were really "too difficult" for the clarinet to play perfectly. When his recording came out, the spectacle of his prancing about between the clarion and the altissimo (across the infamous "upper break") and machine gunning the staccato--to say nothing of the silken legato on the lyrical passages, seemed unbelievable. Danish players may have complained that by making it all sound so easy, he missed the bipolar conflicts of the piece; he rode a unicorn (or Pegasus) into battle and flew wound-less through the sky rather than dog fighting. In any case, after his spectacular reading, nobody's excuses would hold-- all the passages in the Nielsen could be played with easy facility, and there was no going back to "well, it's not idiomatic for clarinet." It was surely idiomatic for him!

Post Edited (2018-02-17 08:39)

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