Klarinet Archive - Posting 000375.txt from 1994/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re-raising a point
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 1994 09:42:08 -0500

I am in the final days of a run of Nutcracker with the Kirov ballet which has
come over from St. Petersburg to do about 10 performances of the work with us.
Their remarkable cast has been supplement by students from the Kirov school
in Washington and almost every performance is sold out.

There are probably many of you who have played the work even more times than
I. I guess I am getting close to 1,000 performances. But in San Francisco,
New York, Chicago, etc. there are guys who have played it 2,000 times and
even more.

The bass clarinet doesn't have too much to do, at least not in contrast with
the soprano clarinets who work their backsides off from opening to closing.
The bass clarinet does not play in the overture, the march, the never-ending
waltz of the flowers, and even when playing, has a lot of rests. It is easy
to fall asleep and miss things. One reads a lot.

However - and now the purpose of this post - the other evening I noticed
something. I am sitting there with my two bass clarinets, one in A, one in
B-flat and I began to notice changes in the setup of the two soprano
clarinets that started the old grey matter working.

Sometimes when I am on B-flat bass, the sopranos are on B-flat clar.

Sometimes when I am on B-flat bass, the sopranos are on A clar.

Sometimes when I am on B-flat bass, the sopranos switch from A to B-flat
and/or from B-flat to A.

Sometimes when I am on A bass, the sopranos are on B-flat (once).

More often when I am on A bass, the sopranos are on A.

Sometimes when I am on A bass, the sopranos switch from A to B-flat
and/or from B-flat to A (once).

In almost every case, there is ample time for me to switch instruments
so as to have the entire section on the same pitched instrument. But
the composer does not always do that.

That is to say, he deliberately has the clarinet family playing on
different pitched instruments; sopranos in one pitch, bass in another.

There are only three reasons that I can think of for this action:

1) the bass instrument is required to play a low note not
available to the other instrument; i.e., a low e on an
A bass was not a note that could be played by B-flat bass
in Tchaikovsky's time

2) he was stupid and forgot what he was doing; if he had
any brains he would have had all the clarinets in the same
pitch.

3) what he did, he did deliberately for reasons that only
he understood and never stated.

Maybe you can see a fourth or fifth reason but they elude me now.

I also presume that, when creating an autograph score, the three
clarinets are next to each other on the staves so it is not possible
that he did not know what he was doing. Considering the fact that
this same composer did this in other works, I have to eliminate
number 2.

Number 1 has to be eliminated too, because that is objectively
false. On those occasions where the A bass is used while sopranos
are in B-flat, there is no low e present. Also the argument does
not apply for B-flat bass vs A sopranos. Scratch number 2.

And that leaves us ... (trumpets, please!) ... number 3.

I know that we have been around this 'till the cows come home, but
the evidence is in front of you. What conclusions do you reach?

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================