Top clarinet calls time
OrchestrasThe German clarinet virtuoso Sabine Meyer is to retire from the stage next year, she has let it be known.
Meyer, 65, shot to fame when Herbert von Karajan tried to force through her appointment to the all-male Berlin Philharmonic, only for the players to vote 73-4 against her receiving tenure. Their obduracy precipitated Karajan’s resignation.
Meyer went on to a wide-ranging career as soloist, chamber musician and teacher. She married Reiner Wehle, who played clarinet in the Munich Philharmonic, and shared a professorship with him for 30 years at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck.
Sabine Meyer is a better clarinetist than Emmanuel Pahud is a flutist or Albrecht Mayer is an oboist, that’s how good she is, maybe the rest of the orchestra couldn’t handle her. Their lost. And hers too. And the audience’s.
She’s a great clarinetist but she joined (and left) the Philharmonic a decade before either of them did, so I’m not sure what your point is.
Doesn’t make sense here. A clarinetist is better than a flutist and an oboist? They’re all great musicians and let’s leave it at that.
In what way is Sabine Meyer a better player than the two musicians you’ve mentioned? Can you substantiate that?
Can’t we praise her without having to denigrate other fine musicians?
That’s an absolutely incorrect statement.
No, this was not related to Karajan’s resignation. It was seven years earlier.
It was the first tipping point in the process.
Hellmut Stern told me this had nothing to do with gender or ability. It had to do with Karajan’s forcing her into the BPO over their tenure process.
So it was just a coincidence that the BPO had no women members at that point because it forbade them membership. Now, about that bridge in Brooklyn you have for sale…
Indeed. The interview in The Clarinet magazine says the orchestra (not Karajan) hired her, but he took a real liking to her, and seemed – as I understand it – to press for a quick tenure decision on her. And the players resisted that, guarding their prerogative to determine who plays in the orchestra. Probably if Karajan had played it cool, he’d have gotten his way.
Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
She was also a skilled breeder of horses I believe, and that improves her in any estimation.
Championing a great musician who happened to be female, as opposed to, say, looking for a great female clarinettist. Like him or not otherwise, the aging Karajan was a trailblazer in Sabine Meyer’s case.
Personally, I won’t forget how Sabine Meyer introduced the second theme of the 3rd movement in Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto, as part of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, in 2005. It was one of those rare moments when a great musician made me rediscover overly familiar music. I had already known Beethoven’s 3rd concerto for almost 30 years.
Sabine Meyer is an prime example of the German system and German school of clarinet playing. She was on equal level with all windplayers of the Berlin Philharmonic. She had to leave because of old-fashioned prejudice and stubborness in hiring policies
Awesome last name Hein!
Gesetzliches Rentenalter.
There is a detailed interview with Sabine and her clarinettist husband here. The BPO situation is clarified https://clarinet.org/interview-with-sabine-meyer-and-reiner-wehle/
Great interview. Thank you for the link.
A sad day for clarinet players as she is rated as one of the greatest players of the instrument of all time. Some would rate her on the top spot with gorgeous tone and impeccable technique. A great exponent of the Wurlitzer German system clarinet! Herr Karajan turned out to be correct in his judgement. Buy her recordings while you can! Thank you Sabine for your amazing talent. God bless you and your family. Bill. Uk
Sabine Meyer . the BEST female clarinetist and performer. It doesn’t get any better. I feel she is a much better player than most off the men. Congratulations on your retirement. Youve earned it and then some .
Except for Michele Zukovsky, perhaps.
Reiner relates how Karajan thought Sabine was a talent that happens once a century, but regarding her rejection by members of the Berlin Phil, Sabine says the orchestra was absolutely fair and that , “It was complicated, but it was no problem of male or female!”
We’re to assume that it was just a coincidence that the orchestra had no women members, that it categorically forbade them membership, and that members had a long history misogynistic statements, both before and after she was driven out. Even after being forced to admit women, the orchestra hired them at a very slow rate.
Sabine and Reiner’s comment illustrate the stubborn denial that long existed in Germany about the sexism in its classical music world, and why it has been so slow to change.
Here’s an example of the attitudes that existed, an interview of Georg Faust, principal cellist of the Berlin Phil, completed on January 6, 2003 by Birgitta Tollan of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation/Sveriges Radio. The interview was broadcast in edited form on March 10, 2003:
Birgitta Tollan: When will the cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic hire their first woman?
Georg Faust: The Auditions are not for a committee but it’s in front of the whole orchestra, and the orchestra decides who is going to be the new member of the group, which makes it very democratic and very obvious that there is no way for the cellists to manipulate anything. It was the way it was – that the men are still a little better than the women cellists.
Birgitta Tollan: Do you think that men and women play differently?
Georg Faust: Yes of course – absolutely. And soon the women will take over anyway! (Laughter). And it will change the whole situation of course.
Birgitta Tollan: Do you think so – that just one woman will change the whole situation?
Georg Faust: Of course – we are all human beings. If you are a group of twelve men, and one woman comes in, I am absolutely sure it will change the whole situation. It will change the image because part of our success is that we are 12 men. We can easily see this when we go to Japan. We are like a boy group.
Birgitta Tollan: Back Street Boys from Berlin.
Georg Faust: Yes. Back Street violoncellists. Boy group. Because the audience is 90 % women. So this shows that this kind of energy we produce as 12 men – as 12 cellists – and 12 men, is something very strong, is very homogenous and very unique in a way. Like a football team: The same instruments, it’s 12 players of the same instrument. It’s always a feeling of concurrence. Always a certain kind of pressure. Because everybody knows the other person very, very well. He knows what he can do and what he can’t do. They are like 12 dogs. They all need their certain room and they all have their “revier”.
End of interview excerpt. I lived in the midst of these attitudes in Germany for 43 years. It also included the rampant sexual abuse of students and colleagues, and even led to the President of Munich’s University of Music being sent to prison for rape. But of course, “no problem male or female.”
The Berlin Phil cello section now has at least two women and female academy students subbing there all the time.
And Herr Faust isn’t actually wrong in how women might change the sound or dynamic, nor did he explicitly say he opposed women joining (I’m pretty both joined before he left, BTW).
The first woman to enter the cello section arrived not long after that interview. It let the cat out of the bag about the sexist views and became such an embarrassment, they had to change.
William,
Mr Faust’s cr*p may be very suggestive of past practices, possibly to a lesser extent some present ones too. But can his word be used against Sabine Meyer’s? Would Sabine Meyer have any reasons to misrepresent her case, 40 years on? She is speaking from a position of strength.
The statements by Faust relate directly to Sabine’s denial by showing how profoundly sexist the views in the orchestra were even 20 years after Sabine was driven from it. This combined with the fact that in 1983 when she was temporarily playing with the BPO it had no women members at all. The complete exclusion was an overt and unashamed manifestion of sexism. The evidence and circumstances are so overwhelming, it’s odd for people to look past them. It reflects the way fans idealize classical music, even if it means overlooking troubling realities.
This is the interview of Sabine and Reiner I’m referring to::
https://clarinet.org/interview-with-sabine-meyer-and-reiner-wehle/
1) The central problem with your analysis is that you are mansplaining to a woman that she was too blind, too duped, and too un-woke, to realize she was a victim of her own gender discrimination, both internalized and from the outside world.
And that you, an outsider observer in every sense, knows better than her, the central player inside this drama.
2) Sabine clarifies in the interview: ” After this very long struggle between Karajan and the orchestra it was I who made the decision to quit the orchestra”
The fact is, the orchestra never took a vote. She left before a tenure decision was made. There is no way to prove or disprove whether, as she said, “it was no problem of male or female”
But I suppose your analysis would be that Sabine so internalized the male domination point of view that she, subconsiously, took herself out of the conflict, that she self-eliminated?
Where’s your giving full agency to Sabine Meyer?
Regarding my above post, I might add that to this day 22 of Germany’s 24 conservatories do not have any women classical brass instrument professors. But of course, “it is not a problem of male or female!”
I lived in Germany in the 70s-80’s. I can tell you it was exactly the same for women scientists. I never, ever expected to be appointed because I am female. All I ever hoped for (most often in vain) was to be seen & treated as a professional. It’s comforting, even at this late stage, to see a man who actually ‘gets it’ !
Congratulations for a wonderful career as a world class clarinetist. Sexism in the orchestral world has diminished greatly since you began your career. Even Berlin and Vienna now have many wonderful female members because of anonymous audition protocol. You are one of the finest clarinetists with impeccable musical integrity of the past 100 years! Bravo maestra!
Vienna removes the screen for the final round so they can check out the visual appearance of candidates. I suspect the practices are the same at the Berlin Phil–if it uses blind auditions at all which are not very common in Germany.
Berliner Philharmoniker does not use a screen in any part of the audition. They audition on stage in front of the whole orchestra for every round.
Hmm. Interesting. I was a clarinet student at the Royal Academy of Music in London when Karl Leister (principal clarinettist of the Berlin Phil)came over to give masterclasses in the late 1980s. I think most of the students and professors there would have agreed his excellence. I’m not sure she had his gravitas at the time
Karl Leister is indeed one of the greats. And Meyer wasn’t hired to replace him; she replaced the other principal (I don’t know his name). Leister remained until around 1993 (even then he was only 55).
Sabine Meyer is a fine musician and a wonderful clarinettist. Her recordings with the Sabine Meyer Wind Ensemble are exemplary. Congratulations on a great career and enjoy retirement!