Klarinet Archive - Posting 000201.txt from 1996/06

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Nick Shackleton's comments on sound character
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 18:24:36 -0400

Thanks Nick. Your comments are always lively and helpful.

I think you are confusing the quantity of Italian clarinets that have
low E-flat, with the players of first rank who do not, in the main, use
them.

I have visited almost every major opera house in Italy, and attended
symphonic concerts of the major orchestras. Where the Italian pros
are concerned, barely a sprinkle of clarinets with low E-flat can
be found. I also lived in Sicily for a couple of months and in
every country village that had a banda sinfonica, almost every player
in the banda played a clarinet with a low E-flat. But so what? That's
not the population we are talking about. We are talking about movers
and shakers. And in Milan, Rome, Venice, Turin, Florence, just
about everywhere in Italy where there are major players, you don't
find them using low E-flat instruments in symphonic work. (See below
about issues of intonation of full Boehm clarinets.)

If volume of use counts, then the most important clarinet in the
US is a green Bundy. That has no influence on serious clarinet
playing in the classical world.

Now let me add that I have not one, but two such clarinets. One in
B-flat and one in A, so I am not speaking out of total ignorance.
But I did not dare to use those instruments in serious symphonic
playing, not because of the low E-flat, but the other elements of
the full Boehm system created intonation problems in the left hand
above the staff. The only reason I retained them is, by an
attachment to the lower joint, I get them to play low written d.
For the B-flat instrument then, I played the Mozart fragmentary
quintet that has a low d in it (but at the expense of losing the
E-flat). I got the A simply to have a match for the B-flat. And
when I bought it in Paris in 1963, it had to be special ordered
because they were not making them in any quantity due to poor
sales.

There are probably a hundred pros in the US who have full Boehm,
low E-flat instruments, but I don't think I have seen a pair (or
even one) used in a symphony orchestra in 25 years.

Tell me one player, one major player, in all of Europe (leave out
Russia and the Baltics - that's a special case) that uses one?
You'll probably come up with somebody but even that will be
stretching it. How about the German system instrument? Can a
low E-flat be obtained on it? I don't know the answer to that
question, just asking. How many low E-flat German system
clarinets are used in the major orchestras of Germany, Austria,
Netherlands, German-Switzerland, etc.?

The Russians use the instrument probably more than anyone else,
but that is because Prokoffiev constantly wrote low E-flats in
the 1920s and 1930s when the instrument received temporary
popularity. In fact, Peter and the Wolf is for such an
instrument, not for A clarinet as is the case in most editions.
And, without wishing to create an international scandal, for the
time being, Russia is not a major player in the clarinet playing
world, though some fine individual performers exist.
The bottom line is that I challenge your assertion of importance
(not popularity) among clarinet players of Italy. And
although you did not say this, I challenge
any assertion of important use of the low E-flat clarinet
for 98% of the Boehm players of importance in all of Europe.

I must admit that I know nothing about Spanish players, but the
Belgians don't use them to any significant degree. And the
major British players absolutely do not, though they may own
such instruments just as I own a lot of stuff I never use.

I'm not trying to be a musical snob, simply challenging Jim
Sclater's arguments and yours.

The fact is that, except for an occasion here and there, the
low E-flat clarinet is as dead as a doornail.

One question about a statement you made. You inferred that
Mahler wrote requesting a low E-flat in the instrument. I
was always under the impression (perhaps incorrectly) that
Mahler's use of a low E-flat on clarinet was an error on
his part about the range of the instrument. Was the low E-flat
on the soprano clarinet in Mahler's day? And if I remember
correctly, Puccini has the B-flat clarinet descend to a low
written d (the 2nd clarinet) in Soir Angelica, but that has
to be a technical mistake, not proof of the existence of a
low D clarinet, though I must admit that I am not certain of
what I speak.

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