Still remembering Stanley Drucker (who's got me hearing voices -- including a lot from one source)

ALONG THE WAY WE'LL HAVE A COUPLE OF STORIES. BUT
FIRST A FEW WORDS FROM A CERTIFIABLY EXPERT WITNESS

"I think the thing I'll miss most about Stanley is his unbelievable creativity, his ability to make a moment anytime he has the opportunity."

-- Cynthia Phelps, NY Phil principal violist since 1992, quoted at the time of Stanley Drucker's retirement, in 2009, when they'd been fellow principals for 17 years (requoted in a Dec. 2022 posting by the orchestra)

SAY AGAIN, PLEASE, CYNTHIA?

"His unbelievable creativity, his ability to make a moment anytime he has the opportunity"

Let's rehear our clip of the first-movement intro, Andante, ma non troppo, leading into the Allegro energico, of the Sibelius First Symphony --

In Philharmonic Hall, c1967 [photo by Harry Bial, NY Phil Archives]

Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Philharmonic Hall, Mar. 14, 1967


NOW, WITH OUR EARS ALREADY TUNED TO SIBELIUS --

Let's hear three fine but distinctly different performances of Sibelius's compulsively riveting tone poem En Saga, Op. 9. One is the performance that (in a story I'll tell in a moment) I happened to listen to one day which grabbed hold of my ears and wouldn't let go -- can you guess which? (If you're of a mind to cheat, you can scroll down a bit for the answer.)

En Saga as visualized by painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), born in the same year as Sibelius -- they shared what curator and art historian William L. Coleman has described as "a complex creative friendship."

En Saga is without program or literary source. Nevertheless, the adventurous, evocative character of the music has encouraged many listeners to offer their own interpretations, among them a fantasy landscape (such as that by the Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela [above]), a hunting expedition, a bard's storytelling, and the essence of Finnish people. Sibelius routinely declined to state a program . . . . [In] the 1940s [he] describ[ed] the work as "the expression of a certain state of mind" -- one with an unspecified, "painful" autobiographical component -- for which "all literary interpretations [were therefore] totally alien."

-- from Wikipedia [footnotes onsite]

Scottish National Orchestra, Alexander Gibson, cond. Classics for Pleasure-EMI, recorded April 1974

Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in the Philadelphia Athletic Club, Jan. 20, 1963

Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leif Segerstam, cond. Chandos, recorded in the Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Feb. 25-27, 1991

by Ken

The long blog silence has been far from inactive, and a lot of the musical activity -- and pondering -- sprang from our remembrance-in-progress of the barely comprehensible career of clarinetist Stanley Drucker (1929-2022), who joined the New York Philharmonic as assistant principal in 1948 at the age of 19 and was elevated to principal clarinet in 1961, after which he held that post with unflagging distinction, under five music directors, until his retirement in 2009.


BACK TO EN SAGA -- AND THE STORY OF HOW ONE
OF OUR PERFORMANCES SEIZED CONTROL OF ME

Do I hear a clarinet?

Here, more or less, is where we're going to wind up
[I know I sometimes (or maybe often!) keep it to myself -- make it a little surprise! -- where we're headed, musically speaking, but not this time. -- Ken]

i. Allegro [no exposition repeat]
ii. Adagio [at 9:07]

Keith Puddy, clarinet; Gabrieli Quartet (Kenneth Sillito and Brendan O'Reilly (probably, but possibly Claire Simpson), violins; Ian Jewel, viola; Keith Harvey, cello). Classics for Pleasure-EMI, recorded in the U.K., released 1970

But this is where our story -- and there is a little story -- starts

Wait, the saxophone's a Woodwind Family member? Hmm . . . okay, sorta.

But really, at the moment it's just two Family members we're interested in.

Duo in C for Clarinet and Bassoon --
i. Allegretto
ii. Larghetto sostenuto [at 3:49]
iii. Rondo: Allegretto [at 5:58]

Members of the Melos Ensemble of London. EMI-Warner Classics, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, October 1969

by Ken

Yes, yes, Ives and all of that. I'm still trying to make the transition from "Ives the easy way" to "Ives the hard way," moving from the Second to the Third Symphony, with a dip into the violin-and-piano sonatas (and maybe the string quartets?); with the Fourth Symphony and the Concord Piano Sonata looming on the horizon. Though I've also been wondering whether we oughtn't to go back to the First Symphony, so often dismissed as merely Ives's "student" symphony.

Anyway, in some fashion yet to be worked out, that's all coming!

Meanwhile, there was this EMI "double fforte" double-CD set that somehow found its way to a sitting-around-doing-nothing situation. But before we continue with our "little story," a challenge: your best guess (unless you know, in which case it's not much of a challenge, is it?) at to whether --

the charming little clarinet-and-bassoon duo we just heard is by: (a) Haydn, (b) Mozart, (c) Beethoven, (d) Schubert, (e) Schumann, (f) Brahms, (g) somebody else.

SO, LET'S PROCEED WITH THE "LITTLE STORY" --