Klarinet Archive - Posting 000658.txt from 1998/03

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: Re:Bassett notes
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 07:24:40 -0500

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.31
> Subj: Re:Bassett notes

> I don't play Basset clarient but I do play Basset horn, in fact I do the
> Strauss "Happy Workshop" Serenade this weekend. I use the long fingering
> for third line Bb, as described below, for passages coming out of the
> clarion register, and the small Bb (Thumb and A) for those coming out of
> the throat register. On my horn, a LeBlanc with (I suspect
> unfortunately) all cork pads, the long Bb is better in tune. The use
> of low D, C#, and C fingerings for A, Ab and G in the throat register is
> technically possible but I find the response and pitch bocome
> increasingly questionable as I move down the chromatic scale. SO I
> don't do it. This is due to the location of the register vents.

I am so very happy that you will have the opportunity to play the
Happy Workshop this coming weekend. I don't know if you have
recognized the secret tune of the last movement, but the work was
written for the 150th anniversary of the death of Mozart and was
premiered in Munich in 1941. So Strauss (accepting the then understood
orthodxy that K. 361, the Gran Partitta, was written for Munich),
deliberately copied the tune of the last movement for Happy Workshop.

Many years ago when I played the work, I kept thinking, "Why does this
tune sound so familiar?" The earlier movements of Happy Workshop were
added after 1941. Only the last movement was written for the
150th, and apparently Strauss did not feel that it was sufficient
for an entire composition. So he wrote three movements up front and
then made the magnificent dedication, "To the spirit of the Godlike
Mozart at the end of a thankful life."

Strauss was still wounded badly from the deNazification process of
WW2 and he spent his final days in Garmisch writing Happy Workshop,
it's companion piece Invalid's Workshop and a few other works. It
was a sad end to a glorious life as a composer, but he made some
very foolish mistakes in politics in 1939 and he never really
recovered from them.

>
> On my Prestige bass clarinet the throat Bb is much nicer and so is the
> mechanism, I have not found any use for long Bb--yet.
>
> Robert Howe
>
>
> Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu> wrote:
> "Subject: Basset Clarinet Query
>
> Anyone out there play a basset clarinet? Or has done so?
>
> On my bass (rather, the one NMSU provides me), I occasionally substitute
> a
> low Eb + register key to play the throat Bb, and lip it up to take care
> of
> the 5 cent discrepancy. I generally do it on exposed parts when I can't
> use the trill fingering (the trill and the overblown Eb both have a
> better
> tone than good ol' A + RK).
>
> Seeing as how the basset has an extension to C, is it plausible to do
> the
> same thing? You could eliminate the throat altogether (the extension
> would allow you to play to open G), and instead, play all those nots
> with
> a clarion voice instead of a throaty chalameau. You wouldn't have to
> wory
> about finger shadings to eliminate the throatiness. But then again, I'd
> imagine that you'd have to do some lipping to adjust the tuning, but at
> least the tone would be solid (I imagine).
>
> So, having never touched a basset clarinet, I can only theorize. If
> you've got basset experience, gimme your 3 yen. If you don't, give it
> to
> me anyways. I'm just very curious.
>
> Shouryu Nohe
> Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ."
=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================