Klarinet Archive - Posting 000383.txt from 1997/03

From: Clark W Fobes <reedman@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: low B in bass cl.part
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 16:24:03 -0500

On 03/12/97 12:54:21 you wrote:
>
>In a message dated 03-11-97 INTERNET: peter.stoll=UTO wrote to ** ALL **:
> Ip> I just wanted to highlight a question buried in my last post about
> Ip> low extension bass clarinets; I recently saw a part that seemed to
> Ip> call for a low B, under the 2nd ledger line of the bass clef (looks
> Ip> like a low G in treble clef). Is there such a note, even on extended
> Ip> bass clarinets? It wasn't just one B, either, and you had to play
> Ip> around this pitch (I don't think a paper towel liner-as-extension
> Ip> would work. It was a piece called "Air" by Ivana Loudova, written for
> Ip> Josef Horak.
>
>The only such instrument I know of is Dennis Smylie's old Buffet, with an
>extension built by the Haynes Flute company for Mazzeo. It goes down to low b.
> It is quite an interesting, and probably one of a kind, contraption.
>
>David Hattner
>clarinetist-at-large, NYC
> -> Alice4Mac 2.5d3 E QWK Eval:04Feb96
>Origin: Alice strikes back =
>
>

I have seen the instrument that Dennis owns (I believe it actually goes to a Low
Bb). I studied
clarinet with Rosario Mazzeo for 5 years and I thought that the extension was
made at the Powell
factory . According to Rosario, they gave him a corner of the shop and he
actually designed the
mechanism himself with some assistance from the factory crafts people. It is an
interesting
extension, because everything below E is on a very long metal bell.

Recently I played the bass clarinet part to the Walter Piston 3rd Symphony which
has a beautiful
extended range solo for the bass clarinet at the end of the 2nd movement. I wish
I had copied
the part, but I am fairly certain that it had a low A# and B. As you may know,
Walter Piston was
on the faculty of Harvard and the 3rd Symphony was premiered by the Boston
Symphony in January
of 1948. Rosario was well into his career with the BSO at that point and I can
only imagine that
Piston knew that Rosario had such an instrument and wrote the part for him.

Clark W Fobes