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 EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Philip Caron 
Date:   2025-07-02 02:19

Recently there was an interesting thread about people's favorite non-clarinet instruments. That introduced me to pedal steel guitar and led to other fruitful online explorations.

Similarly, who are your favorite non-clarinet musicians? Besides great clarinetists, who's performances have inspired you? What have you learned from listening to them? Links if you can, please.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xyfPrdLvec



Post Edited (2025-07-02 02:26)

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Chris P 
Date:   2025-07-02 15:50

Heinz Holliger is without a doubt my favourite oboist.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010


Independent Woodwind Repair Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes

NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.

The opinions I express are my own.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Nelson 
Date:   2025-07-02 16:39

Here are a few who, in my humble opinion , are incomparable.

Jascha Heifetz: Will there ever be another like this wonderful musician

Richard Tauber: A stylist of the first order and even today should be
listed up there with the greatest.... even though styles have
changed so much.

If I may suggest a compeer/organist
J S Bach there are not enough superlatives to describe the perfection
that he achieved.

Another thought
Stephen Sondheim I've done a lot of shows but marvel at the colours in this
man's palette . It amazes me the way he could change the very
*heart* (can't think of another description) of the music's
charactering from show to show right up to 'Passion'

Paul Robeson An artist with so much presence He could reach out to so
many people.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Selmer Buff 
Date:   2025-07-03 06:03

Paul Simon

Tom Waits

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: clarnibass 
Date:   2025-07-03 08:56

A few examples in no particular order...
Jean-Luc Cappozzo
Evan Parker
Hiatus Kaiyote
Bjork
Knower

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Luuk 
Date:   2025-07-03 14:22

Any renowned string quartet.

Regards,

Luuk
Philharmonie Brainport
The Netherlands

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Philip Caron 
Date:   2025-07-03 15:34

Heinz Hollinger is also on my list. Phrasing, dynamics, articulation . . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQhhAiraxQ

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Chris P 
Date:   2025-07-03 16:13

Philip Caron wrote:

"Heinz Hollinger is also on my list. Phrasing, dynamics, articulation . . . ."

And then he goes and plays oboe d'amore ...

https://youtu.be/4lqeqpSTbNQ?si=ItMgVKaX6BSD2_vU

I'm not crying - you're crying.

Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010


Independent Woodwind Repair Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes

NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.

The opinions I express are my own.

Post Edited (2025-07-03 16:19)

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: RefacerMan 
Date:   2025-07-03 17:49

Danish recorder virtuoso Michala Petri and violin virtuoso Hillary Hahn. Both women are just incredible musicians.



Post Edited (2025-07-03 17:51)

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: GenericClarinet129 
Date:   2025-07-05 03:58

Hello,

Bernard Greenhouse remains unparalleled in the field of cello.



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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Fuzzy 
Date:   2025-07-05 04:53

Great topic...too many to mention, so I'll start off with Peggy Lee.

Phrasing. Fluid phrasing over the chord changes. Mood matches the background and song.

If you try to play along, you'll find all sorts of restructuring of the melodic timing all along the way. Delays where notes would have been, or notes smack dab where they should be. All stretched and woven into a beautiful work. (Listen to how far away the melody gets at times from the beats emphasized by the bass and guitar...sometimes earlier, sometimes later. You really feel it when you try to play along with her - she changes it each time.)

Where or When (starting at pickups into the vocal)

Full version

Fuzzy
;^)>>>

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: m1964 
Date:   2025-07-05 08:50

GenericClarinet129

"...Bernard Greenhouse remains unparalleled in the field of cello."

I thought it was Rastropovich. Google says it was Pablo Casals.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: ruben 
Date:   2025-07-05 10:27

Generic: I heard Bernard Greenhouse often with the Beaux Arts trio here in Paris: a wonderful cellist and lovely person. It's nice that you mention him.

rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com


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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: ACCA 
Date:   2025-07-05 12:40

Mark Knopfler.
Paul Desmond.

there. I've said it!

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Philip Caron 
Date:   2025-07-05 15:03

Heifetz has been on my list for a long time. When his Bach Sonatas & Partitas came out, critics called it dry, which baffled me. Yes, it was fast and technically impeccable, and at that time and still now I admire those things greatly and aspire to them. But Bach's incredible music was in Heifetz's hands illuminated and brought to my ears with a clarity and power I hadn't heard before. Yes, there are other different and magnificent recordings of these pieces, but Heifetz is up there.

Here he is later in life: imagine the power of control behind the apparent ease, and the ability to make expensive choices at will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhOaS_Cy8_8

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Philip Caron 
Date:   2025-07-05 15:39

Hi Chris. Youtube tells me that video of BWV 1053R you linked is not available. A search finds a recording of the same piece, again with Holliger on oboe d'amore, but only the first movement.

So, after that one I made do with a full recording of 1055R. What stands out, as it does for all great performers, is the density of expression, such that every part of every note is done a certain timed way, so the whole work sounds alive, like you were listening to or even intimately touching some marvelous, beautiful, turned-on creature. All the detail is tastefully scaled so that little things don't strike you in the face, but they're right there contributing to the whole whether you notice them to your delight or simply feel their effect.

Reverse accent is a thing! Crescendoing up a scale but then unexpectedly playing the top note hushed, which Holliger did in 1055R's middle movement, can sound like a revelation . . . . if it's well situated and perfectly executed.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: donald 
Date:   2025-07-07 18:19

I'm going to twist the OP slightly to make it "non clarinettist musicians who have influenced me".
Yuri Bashmet has been my model for what I'd call "expressive classical performance within boundaries of taste/style"
David Gilmour was inspiring and formative for me, listening to a soloist and improviser who used sound and timbre to be expressive, rather than just "shredding" with technical passages. Oddly, looking back on many performances of contemporary music (where we imagine the whole job is just following intricate instruction, but it really should involve much more than that) I can see how DG's "expressive model" helped me be more than another idiot note factory despite him being a rock/pop performer.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Rocky Beach 
Date:   2025-07-07 23:19

Listening to Bill Evans the jazz pianist. I just love his style of playing.

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: Philip Caron 
Date:   2025-07-09 05:39

Thanks for the mention of Richard Tauber. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nKY8VQlnxg

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 Re: EXCLUDING clarinetists, who are your favorite musical performers?
Author: ruben 
Date:   2025-07-09 08:57

The German tenor Fritz Wunderlich. He died accidentally when he was in his thirties. He started out as a horn player and this must have helped his amazing phrasing and breath control.

rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com


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