Picture taken from www.ne.jp/asahi/szell/ cleveland/marcellu.htm Thanks to Mr. Gregory Smith for giving me a copy of this interview! It has been so beneficial! (Due to space limitations, not all of this interview will be stated on here; only the topics that are felt to be the most important are included) Robert Marcellus, one of America's greatest and most influential clarinettists and teachers, died on March 31st, 1996. He was principal clarinettist of the Cleveland Orchestra, under George Szell, from 1953-1973. During his tenure in Cleveland, he was Clarinet Department Head at the Cleveland Institute. After his retirement from the orchestra, he was Professor of Clarinet at Northwestern University from 1974-1994. His week-long master classes, held each summer (1974-87) were one of the highlights of his teaching career. The following interview with Robert Marcellus is taken from a series of interviews conducted by James Gholsons with a number of prominent American clarinetists and teachers. They were each asked to repond to the same set of question regarding teaching and performance. Australian Clarinet and Saxophone is pleased to publish a shortened version of one of those interviews. What misconceptions do you feel exist in the teaching of the clarinet? Mostly horrible sound! Yes, you talked about a wide, open throat. Well, taht's death to a beautiful sound. Misconceptions taught are open throat, anchor-tonguing, or worse sometimes-chin or lip or hand vibrato as wee see it practiced occasionally. It's a misconception that it's easy to play in an orchestra. But it's easier to play in a good orchestra than a bad orchestra. Oh yes, another misconception is that the double lip gives a fuller sound. Quite the contrary. It gives a smaller sound. How do you teach support? The old business about, as Selmer said, breathing into your stomach-not literally, but figuratively. When I take a breath, it's very deep and the abdominal stomach wall expands. It feels pectorally like I'm inflating an inner tube ot a balloon and the bottom part keeps inflated as one plays. It's a good feeling; it's a good, healthy, deep torso kind of feeling about playing. It's not rigorous at all-quite the contrary-but it's a very deep sustaining kind of support. It just automatically sustains. I think we was that this morning in the class with the gentleman that played the Copland. I kept wondering why he wasn't projecting. He was just whispering as soon as he began supporting, the tone came out-it was amplified better. Really, that's the old Kincaid approach about pushing out and down. I suppose that's what they meant, although I never studied with either one of them, and that's the only way I go. In what order do you evaluate fundamentals in solving problems with regard to semi-professionals? Well, of course, the wind, the embouchure, and, so closely aligned with that, the shape of the oral cavity. Hand position, steadiness of the wind, the jaws, the lips, the oral cavity, the clarinet in the embouchure, the clarinet in the hands, the axis of the palms of the hands themselves, the knuckles being as quiet as possible off of which the fingers operate. Those are some of the basic things, but then, of course, I spend as much time on the basics of music, on musical interpretations, simple phrase lines and their expression, as I do on the instrumental thing. I believe firmly, as I said at the class, that if you know the musical path, it has to solve the instrumental problem. You cannot let yourself play incorrectly or roughly, or ugly or unsmoothly, or unbrilliantly. The basics become more important, not less imporatnat, as one distills throughout the years. That's true of any great musician and I've talked with some incredible world-class musicians who all agree and uphold the simple basic truths that become the most meaningful and most mature from knowledge. That's why they are so important at the outset. Terribly important. How do you teach legato fingerings? In a variety of ways. First of all, the traditional way that so many of the fine clarinet players in this country who studied with Bonade started, like Rose 40 Studies #1: at a very slow tempo, raising the fingers very slowly and putting them down softly without making clicking noises-getting instantaneous coverage of the open holes simultaneously with all the fingers doing it more or less to get a vocal interval, not a gilssando, as opposed to a mechanical interval. (There are others ways of looking at legato). I'm a great believer that the hands should be completely in accord with the musical situation, so if a passage calls very obviously for a very sustained legato, like the second movement of Brahms' Third Symphony.I believe in playing with the fingers into the clarinet, so to speak, holding the clarinet very steadily and then with somewhat strong fingers-playing legato through the phrase without making any noise, without making any abrupt changes, but with great sustaining and blend. A passage like the Ravel Septet, in the chalumeau register for the A clarinet-that's one of the most beautifully, naturally contoured legato phrases I can think of. And if you have your "musical ears" screwed on correctly, you cannot play that any other way than legato. That's the sort of thing where if you keep the wind spinning appropriately without impediment, it's almost like not making any key noises when you change your fingers. Sometimes that calls for a certain amount of inherent strength in the curve of the finger. Sometimes it takes a lot of strength to play legato with strong fingers and good control. Sometimes, depending on the intervals or the musical situation, it takes very little inherent strength in the fingers. It depends on the intensity of the music, actually. This inteview was given by James Gholson, a Professor of Clarinet at the University of Memphis and was published in March of 1999. If you would like to view the whole interview please visit the original site at www.clarinet-saxophone.asn.au/articles/marcellus.pdf |