Re: Klezmer Clarinet

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

Hi, Typ and all.  

I hope the Bierce quote doesn't betray an anti-clarinet bias. 

As to the clarinet's predominance in what we call "klezmer," well, it just
*had* to be.  For the same reason that it came to dominance in all those
other ethnic musics.  It's just such a marvelously malleable voice.  What
other instrument is capable of such human inflections?  True, the clarinet
plays second fiddle when the gypsy primas makes his violin cry, but what
other instrument can sob, laugh, chuckle, cluck, hiccup or wail the way the
clarinet can?  If, as I believe to be the case, the voice of the klezmer is
modelled on the human voice, how could the clarinet fail to rise to the
heights?  And, for loud?  The clarinet just blew those fiddles off the
bandstand!  By the time recording technology came along, the clarinet was
king.  It supplanted its forebears because of its versatility, in the same
way the accordion (my instrument) edged out the bagpipes (my ancestors').
It just does a better job all around.  I'd look like a damn fool trying to
play bagpipes in a klezmer band.  And, if you like disparaging instrument
quotes,  "a gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes, but doesn't."
Though I'm sure many would say the same of the accordion.

Owen (this one's for you, Ilene and Sherry)


At 02:18 PM 1/21/98 -0500, Typically Snide Alex wrote:
>B"H Munich
>
>"the only thing that sounds worse than a clarionet 
>is two clarionets" - Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
>
>
>Before people get too caught up in instrumental-style
>discussions regarding the use of clarinet in klezmer music,
>remember that the people (East European Jews) 
>who created this music were NOT originally limiting 
>themselves to specific instruments or sounds. It's
>only with our academic musicological retrospect that 
>we create clarinet "categories" of klezmer, a truly dangerous
>proposition, since we thereby threaten to turn klezmer music 
>into a Jewish "museum piece", in much the same way many
>musicians reject Bach on the piano.
>
>By the way, though most people seem to think that
>the clarinet is the "typical" klezmer instrument, its
>entry into klezmer music was relatively late. 
>Unless, of course, the only klezmer music under discussion
>is that on recordings. Careful.
>
>Typically Snide Alex
>
_________________________________________________________________________
        Owen Davidson, Amherst, Mass.
        The Wholesale Klezmer Band

        The Angel that presided o'er my birth
        Said Little creature formd of Joy and Mirth,
        Go love without the help of any King on Earth. 

                                Wm. Blake