Re: Klezmer Clarinet

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

On Wed, 21 Jan 1998 14:18:24 -0500
Alex Jacobowitz wrote:

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.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What you're bringing up here is the classic musicological question
about the influence that a particular instrument and playing
technique have on the sort of music that's played. Only for you
it seems that the question has already been answered. But it is
not as simple as you seem to think.

Limiting the question to klezmer, is it not obvious, first of all,
that the kind of music that comes out of a tsimbal, a contrabass,
a trombone, and a clarinet, are quite different? Let's take the
tsimbal. To sustain a note, you must play it tremolo (the same
is true on a mandolin). You cannot play with portamento (slides) --
the trombone, on the other hand, uses slides as an expressive
device. A tsimbal can play rapid filigree-like rhythmic patterns --
utterly impossible on a trombone or a contrabass. 

Now it so happens that the clarinet is a special case. As you
correctly note, the clarinet's "entry into klezmer music was
relatively late." In conquering klezmer, the clarinet pushed out
two earlier instruments that had been featured in a melodic role --
the flute and the violin.

>From the comparatively little we know about klezmer flute style, it
was pretty closely related to Romanian or west Ukrainian style -- very
breathy, easily capable of rapid leaps, rapid chains of notes, etc.
Marcus Bishko of the Alaska Klezmer Ensemble has done an admirable
job of reviving klezmer flute - the Massachusetts band "Klezamir"
also features a fine alto-flute player, whose name I unfortunately
do not recall.

The clarinet simply drove out the flute, but it was the violin whose
style it imitated. Let's look at this for a second. The violin isn't
just any instrument to us Jews. Duvid ha-Melekh played the kinor,
which in Ashkenazic tradition is interpreted as the violin. The violin
was used not just in a klezmer band, but in special uses -- sometimes
just withj tsimbal accompaniment, sometimes as an obbligato to voice
in folk songs, traditionally as an obbligato accompaniment to a
badkhn in a kale-bazetsn ("seating of the bride") and badekns ("veiling
of the bride") at weddings. (Badkhn means wedding-jester/master of
ceremonies.)

If you look at the klezmer violin style, it is EXTREMELY vocal. These
"krekhtsn" that people are mentioning come from Jewish VOCAL style. The
reason the Jewish violin imitates the vocal style is because it CAN.
If you look at a co-territorial violin style, the Ukrainian, you will
find very little of this. The Ukrainian fiddle features very fast playing
with short bow strokes. Some of this has also come into Jewish violin
style, but not vice versa. 

If you listen to early recordings, you will see that in bands (such as
Abe Schwartz's) the clarinet is usually NOT a solo instrument. It usually
plays filler parts in the middle, and a C clarinet often plays very high
chirpy ornaments on top.

But insofar as it WAS a solo instrument, it seems to me that the early
klezmer clarinet we all know and love, exemplified by the classic
triumvirate of "early" Dave Tarras, Naftule Brandwein, and Shloymke
Beckerman, is very closely based on violin style. Including, notably,
the krekhtsn, the shmir'n (slides), and so on. As a klezmer violinist, I
can tell you that the great majority of those early clarinet tunes lie
very well in the hand for the violin -- because that's where they come from.
It's particularly with later Tarras (compositions from the 1930s on)
that you start getting into stuff that is clarinetistic but not
particularly violinistic.

So when you say "the people (East European Jews) 
who created this music were NOT originally limiting 
themselves to specific instruments or sounds.
", I really cannot agree. The vocal sound (which is best exemplified
by a good traditional bal tfile rather than the more operatic cantor)
was supreme in every musician's mind, but for many instruments the
strucutre, playing technique, and FUNCTION in the ensemble (I forgot
to mention that above) brought out an individual personality. It so
happens that some instruments were particularly good at a "vocal"
style and lead melodic function -- violin, clarinet, and to a large
extent, trumpet -- and that's why these 3 instruments have tended
to compete with one another. A trumpet's louder than a clarinet, but
is maybe not as versatile. (Somebody had a good question earlier,
about why so few bands were led by a trumpet -- I don't know, but one
great old band that WAS led by a trumpet was Abe Elenkrig's). But a
clarinet is definitely louder than a violin. 

Let's push your idea and see where it goes. With tremendous practice,
and certain technical modifications to the instruments, EVERY instrument
would be able to play like evry other instrument. There would be greater
tonal consistency across the range of the instrument, and they would
all have greater power. In fact, this has been the goal that has dictated
the evolution of the instruments in a modern symphony orchestra. The
technical range of every instrument has increased enormously over the
past 200 years, but at a price -- the individuality and "personality"
of each instrument has declined.

Itzik-Leyb