Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-10-09 18:17
Looking at this question from the perspective not of "what's hot" at the moment but rather what would you beam up into outer space for aliens to hear if they wanted to know "so how does the clarinet sound (as distinct from all other musical instruments)?" I would choose Annelien Van Wauwe as the sample player. She doesn't sound a thing like an oboe, sax, flute, or horn; she gets a kind of excellent dictionary definition of the clarinet sound; lots of overtones in all registers, no hollowing out or fading in pianissimo, sparkly and expressive without pronounced vibrato,clear and luminous. If you can't tell what instrument she's playing, you're tone deaf (or at least timber deaf). Here she is on a Brahms sonata: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=van+wauwe+clarinet+brahms
Easily one of my favorite players. Should everyone try to sound like that? Of course not. As an indication of just how subjective the "ideal" clarinet sound is, William Ridenour posted on Wauwe's YouTube video of the Saint-Saens Sonata that she needed to listen to some Harold Wright recordings because her tone was hollow! Other listeners lavishly praised her tone, and I find her control in the third movement pianissimo clarion register statement of the theme perhaps the best I've heard. Finally there is no one best clarinet sound.
Post Edited (2020-10-13 21:17)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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