Mitchell Lurie | Renowned clarinetist, 86

Mitchell Lurie, 86, a world-renowned clarinetist and clarinet teacher who taught for many years at the University of Southern California and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif., died of pneumonia last Monday at his home in West Los Angeles.

A Brooklyn native who grew up in Los Angeles, Mr. Lurie was the principal clarinetist for the Pittsburgh Symphony and then the Chicago Symphony in the late 1940s.

He then launched a long career in Hollywood as a top clarinetist for film scores and became a distinguished chamber musician, who might have been known best for his numerous performances with the Budapest String Quartet and the Muir String Quartet.

Pablo Casals, the great Spanish cellist and conductor with whom Lurie once performed, called him the "ideal clarinetist."

"He was the preeminent clarinetist of the latter part of the 20th century, the '50s, '60s and '70s," David Howard, a longtime clarinetist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said.

Howard praised Mr. Lurie for playing "with an incredible singing quality, with an unmistakable tone and a wonderfully refined musicality."

As a clarinetist for the major film studios, Mr. Lurie played on the scores for movies including The Apartment, Dr. Zhivago and Mary Poppins and had solos written for him by composers including Dimitri Tiomkin, Maurice Jarre, Andre Previn and Elmer Bernstein.

Over the years, Mr. Lurie also developed reeds, ligatures and mouthpieces widely used around the world. His final design for the clarinet world was the Tyro, an inexpensive clarinet made in China for beginners that entered the market last year.

- Los Angeles Times