Klarinet Archive - Posting 000307.txt from 1996/03

From: Jacqueline G Eastwood <eastwooj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: more C clarinets
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 17:08:57 -0500

Hi, Jeff,

There are 2 little solo passages in the Witches' Sabbath. The first one
is for C clarinet (usually played by the second clarinet player) and is
pretty short. The Eb clarinet player gets a chance to "test" the horn
when the entire orchestra comes in right after the C solo, then after
this tutti section comes the Eb solo, which is significantly longer than
the C solo.

(I hope that made sense to everyone!)

Jacqueline Eastwood
University of Arizona/Arizona Opera Orchestra
eastwooj@-----.edu

On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, Chan, Jeff
wrote:

> Dan:
>
> Unless my memory is very faulty (it has been some thirty years since I
> played this), isn't the Witch's Sabbath solo in the Berlioz written
> for E-flat clarinet? I am very sure it is, at least in the edition I
> we used at the time.
>
> One of the reasons that I am so sure about this is that I borrowed my
> teacher's E-flat and his fingers were so large that he had filed the
> fork keys to slivers that were almost painful to play.
>
> Jeff Chan
> (Jeff.Chan@-----.com)
>
>
>
> >You almost got me there. The C clarinet does have a unique color -
> >it's a cross between an Eb and a Bb. In the Witches Sabath solo, the
> >tone color is extremely closs to an Eb and given the character of
> >that solo (staccato, grace notes, fast, trills) it's very hard to
> >center in on the color difference.
>