Klarinet Archive - Posting 000076.txt from 1996/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: C clarinets, continued
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 11:09:18 -0500

There have been a spate of postings on this list about the use of C
clarinets, but if I may be presumptuous to attempt to classify them,
they fall into to arenas.

The first, exemplified by David Neithamer, myself, and many others,
suggest that there is little justification in arbitrary substitution
of an A or B-flat clarinet for a C because of issues of tonal balance,
no matter what the composer's reasons for using the instrument were.

The second, suggests that there is no reason not to transpose C
parts onto whichever clarinet is the most logical, and that the instrument
has little purpose in contemporary performance.

I am not going to argue or reargue the issues involved here. That has
been done enough times that re-doing it now would serve no useful purpose.
But I do want to mention an excellent article on this subject as found
in "The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet," edited by Colin Lawson and
published by Cambridge University Press. The price in the UK is 14.95
pounds (forgive me English brethren, I don't have the British currency
symbol in the character set).

The book contains a number of excellent articles and I recommend them all,
but the one to the point of the C clarinet is by Colin Lawson and is
one of two parts entitled "The clarinet family," with part 1 devoted to
the B-flat and A clarinets, and part 2 to the C clarinet.

I quote only the first sentence so that you can see the direction that
the article takes: "The C clarinet's relatively low profile during the
twentieth century is highly regrettable, since the instrument has been
specified by a vast range of composers and can bring its own special
musical rewards."

The recent posting by another "Dan" on this list suggested that the
sound of the C clarinet was an amalgam of the E-flat in its higher
register to the B-flat in its lower one. I suggested that this was
an opinion with which I was not in agreement and Dan has not posted
on the subject since. I hope that he does. It was of value to me to
hear what others thought about a subject on which I have well-formed
(but not imobile) positions.

But if a highly inflammatory statement will ignite the discussion once
again, I offer it now: it is arrogant of clarinetists to presume that
they have any authority whatsoever to ignore a composer's request for
a specifically pitched clarinet, and to substitute at will some other
pitched clarinet of his or her choice. At the heart of that arrogance
is the assumption that the player knows better than the composer what
the composer really wanted, needed, or meant.

Like all extreme statements, this one too has exceptions, but one does
not ignite discussion with inoccuous, kissy-kissy assertions.

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