Q&A with Joint Principal Clarinet Mark van de Wiel
Interviewed by Linda Biney, Talent Development Manager, and Will Haines, Individual Giving Administrator, in the Friends Bar on Sunday 7 April 2024
You joined the orchestra on April Fool’s Day 2000. Tell us about the journey you took to get there.
Well, let me tell you a story that goes right back to the very start. This came to me last year when the Orchestra was playing with the Oxford Bach Choir in Oxford Town Hall, conducted by Ben Nicholas. We played Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and a new choral piece by a marvellous young Russian composer, Alissa Firsova. I hadn’t played for him before, so I went to introduce myself, and I told him we had a connection. He said “I know we have a connection, I’m music director at Merton College Oxford, and you were there”.
But no, that’s not the connection. The connection was at Northampton Grammar school in 1969, where this shy young schoolboy who had just changed schools was asked if he wanted to learn an orchestral instrument. I had played a little bit of piano and recorder, but I was too shy in those days to put my hand up in class. Things have obviously changed slightly since then!
The next day, I went to see the music teacher and said that I’d like to learn a musical instrument, but was worried I’d missed the boat. There were three left: clarinet, flute, or trombone. I didn’t fancy the trombone, so we went to the Midland music shop in Northampton, and I tried a flute for about 10 minutes.
Mark mimes attempting to play a flute, failing to produce a sound.
That’s all I got. And the clarinet went *screech* and there we were. I immediately made the sound which I’ve been trying to avoid making ever since!
None of the peripatetic teachers had any availability, so I was sent to the Principal Clarinet of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra, Peter Davis who’s sadly no longer with us. Peter was an enthusiast. He wasn’t doing it for the money, he was doing it because he loved it – he gave me one hour every week of the year, instead of the half an hour I would have had at school and I had this fantastic tuition, most of which he was doing for nothing. I was then supported by this fantastic music teacher at school, who encouraged me, heard me in between lessons, allowed me to play in class, really helped me, and played the piano for my grade exams. I was telling this story to Ben Nicholas, and that music teacher was his father, Michael Nicholas, who then became the organist of Norwich Cathedral.
Can you tell us about one of your favourite memories since joining the Philharmonia?
No. There are simply too many! It’s an extraordinary privilege to be in this orchestra and to be constantly challenged, not only by the requirements of the music and the conductors but by what our colleagues are up to.
There’s one thing which Will hinted at earlier when he very carefully described me as Joint Principal Clarinet. For all of the principal wind jobs there are actually two principals, who will do half of the schedule. Certainly when I joined the orchestra 25 years ago it would have been impossible to do everything, particularly while doing all the other jobs – teaching, chamber music, contemporary music in the London Sinfonietta where I also play. All these things feed into our playing in the orchestra, and these other influences keep the orchestra alive, so it’s good we’re not entirely committed to 365 days a year.
We’ve recently appointed, and this is my most recent highlight, a young lady called Maura Marinucci, who is the most sensational clarinettist. She’s Italian, was working in Brussels for the last four years, and now she’s come to us. You’ll hear her playing First Clarinet in this afternoon’s concert and she’s absolutely superb. She brings her own feeling, her own sensitivity, and her own sound, but one which matches the Philharmonia sound so beautifully. That’s enhancing the orchestra, and it’s certainly enhancing my life to be sharing the job with Maura.
There are occasions where our lovely colleagues Laurent (Bass Clarinet & Second Clarinet) and Jenny (Eb Clarinet) are unavailable, and in those cases it’s normal to get in an extra player who will often play regularly with the orchestra – Jordan Black for example has been playing Second Clarinet with us for over ten years. But Maura and I decided to do something which we don’t think has been done in the Philharmonia clarinet section, possibly in its history: we play Second to each other. So sometimes I will be Principal on a patch and she’ll come and play second. In this case, this is Maura’s concert so you’ll hear me playing Second Clarinet with her, which is marvellous for me.
To give you a particular example, in the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto [No. 2] there is a beautiful clarinet solo that you will hear Maura play, then the piano gets the melody and the clarinet weaves this golden web of triplets underneath. I’m perfectly used to playing those triplets, but not the notes in the bars where I have to play them today, because she’s playing the part that I’d normally play! So I hope I’ll be sounding ok, but you’ll see me glued to the music in front of me.
Mark is really heavily involved with our educational projects. He is one of the head mentors for our MMSF Emerging Artists clarinet fellow, and is also involved in our Composers Academy. Can you tell us about why involving yourself in educational projects is really important to you?
We learn a lot ourselves – in having to explain what may or may not be possible to Young Composers writing for us, maybe when they haven’t written for those instruments before, or where they haven’t written for professional players, who can then bring them things which they didn’t think they could ask for. A lot of things which are obvious to us [as players] are often not obvious to them, and so you have to find ways of explaining things in other terms, and that can often help us to understand better ourselves.
In a workshop we did a few days ago, we talked about how we want them to write their music in a way that anybody else can read, even when not in contact with the composer – the notation has to be so unambiguous. You have to be unprejudiced in your approach to young composers – just because they’re not adept at knowing how to write something yet, that doesn’t mean that their imagination is not interesting. It’s a very easy fix that we might give the most space to someone who is really well educated and slick and knows how to write everything already, and less space to somebody whose music might not make sense on the page, but that person’s imagination as a composer might be the best! So that’s what we’re trying to find with these workshops.
Music of Today: Composers’ Academy will be taking place on Sunday 2 June 2024 at 6pm. Free tickets can be booked below.
Mark then asks a question of the audience.
How many of you are hearing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 today for the first time?
Very few hands
I thought so. So we all know this Rachmaninov concerto as listeners and as players – it’s an amazing piece and we’re playing it with the most wonderful soloist Bruce Liu. You will hear that however loud he plays (and he does), it’s always a round, beautiful dolce sound which the Philharmonia loves.
It’s a rather extraordinary thing, this piece that we take for granted. When it was first performed, the first movement wasn’t in existence! The second and third movements were played alone, and it was because Rachmaninov had such trouble getting the first movement right.
Now, how many of you have heard Shostakovich Symphony Number 10 performed live?
About half of the audience raise their hands
This performance is going to be red hot. One interesting thing about it, you might recognize the phrase: D, Es, C, H [Written in German musical notation]
Mark takes out his clarinet, and plays the following melody:
This is his own name, Dmitri Schostakowitsch written out, almost phonetically in music. Shostakovich was an intensely private man, who for a variety of personal and political reasons was secretive with a lot of what he was expressing in his music. But he does show his name! You will hear the timpani right at the end of the symphony hammering out his name.
But you will also hear our principal horn Nick Mooney in the third movement play a melody:
This sounds heroic, but it is in fact an expression of love, as it was written as a tribute to a young composition student that Shostakovich had fallen in love with who was called Elmira, E La Mi Re A.
Thank you Mark and everyone for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you again soon!
Following this Q&A, and with Friend David James’s help, Mark is now in contact with Michael Nicholas, his first music teacher, after 53 years! A connection across Mark’s life and career, brought together by the Friends of the Philharmonia.
Our new 2024/25 season is on sale now – book your tickets at the link below, and keep your eyes peeled for next season’s Open Rehearsals and Q&As being announced in the coming weeks.