Klarinet Archive - Posting 000173.txt from 1996/06

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Jim Sclater's response on sound character
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 12:46:16 -0400

Jim writes "Puccini wrote for A and B-flat instruments, yet it
would seem his players, at least in Italy, played the parts on one
instrument, transposing the A parts. Surely he knew of this
practice yet continued to write for both instruments."

Jim is correct that players in Italy sometimes use one clarinet, but
there is no justification or defense of his statement that many
players did this, as his sentence appears to read. In fact, I
don't think that Jim has any statistics about how many did this
thing and what percentage of that group was known to Puccini or
even if he had contact with them to know of their action.

Furthermore, Jim does not know (and neither do I) what Puccini thought.
We only know what he wrote. To draw a conclusion that "Surely he knew
of this practices ..." is soft logic. What he wrote for was clarinet
in B-flat and A. He did so for a reason. I have hypothesized what
those reasons might be based on evidence extrapolated from published
studies done (and whose influence was still present) about 50 years
before he was a young composer.

As for the use of the clarinet in B-flat with the extension to low
E-flat. Once again, Jim quotes statistics with no supporting
documentation; i.e., "Supposedly many Italian players use this
instrument to avoid to have [sic] two instruments."

How many Jim? And "supposedly" by whom? Where does this kind of
information come from? How factual is what you present as a
counterposition?

The fact is that you may not like the suggestion I have made, and that
is OK with me. You win some. You lose some. But to quote "mostly"
and "supposedly" as evidence in support of your point, and to do so
with reference to an instrument that has had no standing in the US,
France, Germany, or almost anywhere (except for occasional use in
Italy and Russia) since the mid 1930s is not, in my opinion, going to
win the day.

As for your final comments, I regret you don't like my sense of humor.
You win some. You lose some.

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

   
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