Joseph Longo — clarinet

My musical training started in Chicago, where I received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from DePaul University. I played as principal clarinetist in the Lyric Opera of Chicago for three years, then took up the government's invitation to tour Europe as part of an Army orchestra. When I returned to the States, I played for the NBC Symphony in Chicago for four years, went to the Milwaukee Symphony for two years, and, in 1966, joined the Minnesota Orchestra, where I've been ever since. I play various music festivals and operas, and joined the Musical Offering about four years ago. 

I joined because the members asked me (most of them belong, like me, to the Minnesota Orchestra) and because I love to play chamber music. Of course we don't join for the money. Are you kidding? But I absolutely enjoy playing: the colleagues are great, and opera and chamber music are the best kinds of playing there is. You’re alone, in a small group, which is very gratifying; you come to musical decisions on your own, not dictated to by a conductor; and the repertoire is most interesting.

Also, the audience for chamber music may be more sophisticated than for symphony music, both younger and older members of the audience. Why should people want to hear us play? Why do you read great books, whether novels or history? It’s good for you! I'd encourage music lovers to hear music of all kinds, as my kids do: they go to rock concerts, and they hear the symphony and chamber music too. Classical music is an enlarging experience, an emotional and spiritual experience that can't be duplicated in other ways. Of course, people must be predisposed, and if you don't get them at an early age it's tough to get them at all. That's why the Minnesota Orchestra does special children’s programs, kinder concerts with special programs for young children, maybe seven or eight musicians on stage that the kids can talk to, whose instruments they can touch. It's a hands-on, growing experience. And we do something like this at the Musical Offering, in our own modest way. Before each piece, one of us gets up, I mean, and gives a spiel about the piece, about the composer. Yes, they do help ground the audience, are are sometimes harder for a musician to give than the music itself.

Some of my favorite chamber pieces include Beethoven's septet, a lovely piece we're doing; Malcolm Arnold's Five Bagatelles for Clarinet and Piano; and the French sonata we did last year. And nonets are inherently a rare and interesting form, which in fact we'll be making a recording of this year. There may be nine or 10 nonets in the literature.

While I don't love each piece equally, all chamber music is a challenge: you're playing in a small group, and everything has to be absolutely perfect. There’s no place to hide, the phrases must be correct, the intonation flawless. Absolutely, chamber music requires confidence of each player in the others; you have to know their strengths and weaknesses and trust there are more strengths than weaknesses. This is certainly true of the Musical Offering, which is as good now as it's ever been. We like to think it gets better each year, more seasoned, more accustomed to playing with each other.

How do we get the pieces right? We practice them until they are right, both on our own and with the group. We work on our own part for as long as it takes, and trust that when we come together so does the music, as quickly as possible.