Klarinet Archive - Posting 000569.txt from 1995/05

From: Jean-Marc Bonard <jean-marc.bonard@-----.CH>
Subj: "Weird" keys...
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 12:04:41 -0400

All this talk about weird keys raises some thoughts.=20

I think we all agree that the clarinet becomes difficult to handle as soon=
as we get more than 3 sharps/flats on the key, apart from the fact that=
every professional should be at ease in all keys. We hit somewhere a basic=
limitation of the instrument (and of the player) when one has to master=
properly fast scales / arpeggios in these "weird" keys. To play Mozart's=
concerto with the soloist's part in F# would be in my eyes a nightmare.

Is then this relative limitation of the instrument not one of the=
justifications for having both Bb and A clarinets (apart from historical=
and other reasons) ?
The Bb clarinet is "at ease" in sounding Db to G major; and the A in C to F#=
major. The whole range of keys is so covered...

The subject reminds me of John Eliot Gardiner's text about his recording of=
Monteverdi's Orfeo. If you want to reproduce as best as you can the sound=
that people could hear at the time, you play on period instruments and you=
tune them with the pitch used in 1602 around Mantoua. Gardiner couldn't=
find any clue about the pitch, so he arbitrarely decided to put the A at=
about 465Hz... since the lead singer was more at ease when singing half a=
tone higher.

Which raises another question: does the character of a key (bright/...)=
depends on the absolute pitch ? Up to 1800 (? and later ?) the pitch varied=
from place to place. And nothing has ever been transposed to match the=
pitches (even if that match would be approximative). The monks writing=
gregorian chants were composing in E for meditation/prayer, in G for=
pilgrim songs etc... (I hope I'm not writing rubbish, some vague remnants=
of music theory) even if the tuning A was different in nearly every=
monastery.=20

What is then the cause for our "feeling" about keys ? Just tradition ? Or is=
something else behind it ?

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc Bonard
Institut de Micro- et Optoelectronique
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Adresse: DP, EPFL, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Telephone: +41(21)693 48 30 - Fax: +41(21)693 44 01
e-mail: jean-marc.bonard@-----.ch