The first time I heard Benny Goodman was at a classical concert in an outdoor venue somewhere around Southport, Conn., in the late ’40s or early ’50s.

I don’t know what he and his big band played, except that it couldn’t have been the Poulenc Clarinet Sonata, since that was only premiered after the composer’s death in 1963. It might have been the Bartok “Contrasts,” commissioned by Goodman, since our lovable but somewhat philistine hosts made an early exit.

Obviously, it didn’t make a lasting impression. I must admit that I remember his popular big band concerts better. It will be interesting to see what the Portland Symphony Orchestra and Goodman channeler Dave Bennett, 27, make of them today under the baton of guest conductor Teresa Cheung.

The program will include many of Goodman’s big band hits, from “Bugle Call Rag” to “Blues in the Night,” but there’s no indication of the many classical works played and commissioned by him.

Like George Gershwin as a composer, Goodman aspired to the classics as an instrumentalist. In fact, he changed his entire style of playing in 1940, when he began taking lessons from classical clarinetist Reginald Kell.

He had always held the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip; Kell taught him to use both lips, in addition to new fingering techniques, which required Goodman to file off his calluses.

Unlike many pop musicians’ forays into classical music, this one was highly successful, enabling Goodman to play brilliantly until his death in 1986 at age 77.

He recorded many of the classics for clarinet, including Igor Stravinsky’s “Ebony Concerto,” the Mozart Clarinet Quintet and Clarinet Concerto in A major, clarinet concertos of Carl Maria von Weber and Carl Nielsen, the Premiere Rhapsody for Clarinet of Debussy, the Brahms Clarinet Sonata No. 2 and other works.

His commissions were notable, not just the Bartok and the Poulenc mentioned above, but also the Clarinet Concerto No. 2 of Malcolm Arnold, “Derivations for Clarinet and Band” by Morton Gould and Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.

As an aside, the 1963 premiere of the Poulenc Sonata was to have been at Carnegie Hall, site of Goodman’s groundbreaking jazz concert in 1938, with the composer at the piano. Poulenc, however, died suddenly, and Goodman had to settle for Leonard Bernstein.

A recording of the Bartok “Contrasts” with Goodman, the composer and violinist Joseph Szigeti was made in 1940, and is still available. 

Christopher Hyde is a writer and musician who lives in Pownal. He can be reached at:

classbeat@netscape.net

 

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