Search - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bela Bartok, Claude Debussy :: Clarinet Classics

Ultimately flawed, but fascinating...

John Grabowski | USA | 12/12/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a tough one to rate. Four stars feels possibly overly generous, yet there are some treasures here, including the superb and not-heard-often-enough Contrasts by Bela Bartok, a chamber masterwork that Goodman commissioned. (Few people realize just how many modern classics Goodman inaugurated. Among his many other achievements, he enriched the world of 20th century chamber music, something for which he is not given credit.) The works here are fascinating--and this Debussy Clarinet Rhapsody may be one of the best performances the work has ever received. Yet when listening to these recordings, which range in sound quality from fair for the time to less than great for the time, one can't escape the conclusion that BG, the "King of Swing," the top pop musician of the 1930s, never really felt at home in classical music, never really performed it with confidence. The man who could play passages of fiery virtuosity with his jazz croanies and make the impossible sound easy was himself ill-at-ease when surrounded by the likes of Joseph Szigeti, Bela Bartok or the Budapest String Quartet. The man who made more in a year than the president of the United States trembled when on stage with orchestra musicians who are now footnotes to history. And in a way it's hard to blame him: at the time jazz and popular music were at pains to demonstrate to the "serious" music world that they were not, well, garbage. Although Goodman had just triumphed in Carnegie Hall shortly before the earliest of these recordings was made, and although swing and jazz were starting to get *some* respectable press, most musicians in the classical field still thought jazz low and the practitioners crude and unskilled. Bartok even resented writing his work for Goodman, and did it for the commission alone. (Benny payed him $3,000, money he desperately needed.) Classical musicians called Goodman the "Jazznik," and when he studied classical technique with some of them they just took his money, figuring he was wasting his time. Only later did he enjoy a very productive study period with a sympathetic British clarinetist, Reginald Kell.



As a result of all this, all the performances here, except maybe the Barbirolli, tend to have a certain tenseness and uncertainty to them. ("Glorious John" was good at calming musicians down because he was so unpretentious, and that may explain the success of his recording.) Goodman could always play the notes, and the lack of technical slips considering this was unfamiliar repertoire and before tape could be spliced is impressive. But Goodman never seems to know what to make of the music. He has little conception of it, and his tone,so warm and flowing in swing and dance music, is here uncertain, sometimes almost shrill, always a little wavery. As someone once commented in the Brahms with Nadia Reisenberg, he sounds more like a student in a recital than a finished clarinetist.



The Mozart is among the shakiest, though he was better in the simpler Quintet than he was in the darker and more troubled Concerto. Still, he leads the music nowhere. The Brahms is similarly uncertain, though Reisenberg is superb and the real reason to listen to this performance. As mentioned, the Barbirolli Debussy Rhapsody comes off best, and Goodman's technique and fire are up to the challenge of the Bartok, even though upon first seeing the music he was said to have remarked "I'm gonna need three hands to play this thing!" The other works are fine but not extraordinary, and act more as encores on the disc. In none of them does Goodman have a voice of distinction, a personality that would make his classical as recognizable as when he played just one bar of swing.



Benny never did get over his awe of classical music. It might have helped him if he had. He once commented about the horrid hollywood biograhpical movie of his life, "The Benny Goodman Story," that he wished they would have emphasized jazz fans coming to classical through his recordings rather than vice-versa. It seemed there was always a little voice in the back of Goodman's mind telling him he really should have been a classical clarinetist first and a dance and jazz musician second. A close friend of his near the end, James T. Maher, said one day he was about to knock on the door of Benny's Manhattan apartment when he heard Goodman practicing within. He was playing one of Brahms' autumnal clarinet sonatas, alone. Maher said he didn't want to interrupt, so he stayed outside, his ear pressed to the door. And he said that day Benny played Brahms like you never heard it on stage or on record. It was, he said, as if Brahms had come by to chat. It's too bad there wasn't some way to get that sound down on tape without Goodman's knowing it. As it is, these recordings are fine and are definitely worth a listen. Perhaps I've even been a little too harsh on some of them. It's just a shame that a first-class jazz soloist was never quite a first-class classical soloist. But he could have been. The technical equipment was there.



(Note: There is another mastering of the Bartok "Contrasts" available on CD on the CBS/Sony album "Benny Goodman Collector's Edition." It also features the Copland Clarinet Concerto, Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto, and Gould's Derivations for Clarinet and Band. While this album has other fine merits, if you're seeking an excellent transfer of the Bartok, avoid the Sony and buy this Pearl instead. The sound is lightyears ahead of Sony's poor efforts.)"