Klarinet Archive - Posting 000111.txt from 1994/07

From: Jeff Bowles <jab@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Two questions...
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 1994 02:10:00 -0400

``I'm thinking that the Barbar Adagio for
Strings might work well [for clarinet choir]....''

Hmm. Let me think about this. If you use the clarion
register of the lower clarinets, you can get the richest
cello-like sounds - especially (get this) out of the Eb contra.
If you had the right people/instruments and the patience,
*and* a good conductor, it could work.

By the way, there's a "Marriage of Figaro" overture floating
around, transcribed for cl. choir. It uses pretty much all
of the standard and odd-ball intruments: there are soprano
and alto and bass and contrabass parts, plus basset horn,
Eb, and Ab sopranino (cued in Eb clarinet parts in case you don't
have an Ab). I don't remember if it has an Eb contra part,
but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Insert another plug for the Eb contra. It doesn't go down
to the glorious range of the BBb contra, but damned if it
doesn't have the richest sound (mine's a Selmer rosewood thingie)
in the clarion register of anything I've heard. And everytime I
got down below a concert Bb, the bassoonist next to me moans.
He doesn't go below that note. I can imagine what he'd do if I
had a *real* contra!]

Jeff Bowles