Klarinet Archive - Posting 000185.txt from 1996/06

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5%cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: Jim Sclater's response on sound character
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 12:56:31 -0400

Dan said re low Eb... 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.
Dan I have to point out that here you are wrong (and you give no evidence).
If (perish the thought, you reply) you every tried to use Bartolozzi's New
sounds for Woodwinds you will have noticed that many of the fingerings given
for chords and so on use the low Eb key (in your defence, the person who
drew the instrument and numbered the keys found this confusing but I have
always supposed that this was a hack doing it for the English translation).
At this moment my Selmer low Eb instrument is on loan for a Berio piece. The
only used clarinet I ever purchased in Italy had a low Eb and it was made in
the 1970's. These are not statistics but they are three pieces of hard
evidence that the use of low Eb clarinets in Italy is a serious matter.
I can also add that my (sold in a period of impecuniosity) Quaranta system
clarinet had a low Eb (Quaranta was an Italina clarinettist in Puccini's
time if my memory serves me right).
If one wanted to start an argument one could say that it is just as
irresponsible for a serious player to fail to use a clarinet with low Eb
when player the works of Mahler etc as to fail to use a c clarinet. Even in
those pieces where a low Eb is not used you should assume that the composer
envisaged the subtly improved low e tone of an extended instrument. I hereby
commend the Oxford student who took the trouble to seek out and learn to
play my Selmer in order to do justice to Berio.
cheers, Nick