Klarinet Archive - Posting 000676.txt from 1998/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Re: A new concept in orchestral clarinets
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 09:59:24 -0400

Jack Kissinger addresses the important question of why the basset clarinet
died out, a thoughtful argument central to the entire question of its
use.

Probably the main reason why the instrument died out is because it
was really never born. Only one player had them, Anton Stadler. There
is, of course, the possibility that others had them and there was no
advertisement of this fact, but the evidence seems to point to only
Stadler having a set of them, in fact, three.

But the goodness of an idea is not made less so by the fact that the
idea did not, for whatever reason, succeed. Personally, I think it
was brilliant to extend the clarinet to low C, and for a very specific
reason. The principal (principle??) key of the instrument should
tolerate execution of arpeggios that end on the tonic of that key.
And C major arpreggios (and scales too) cannot do that on a clarinet.
Instead, they end on the third.

There are very valuable and important musical effects that can be
achieves by rapid passage work that ends on the tonic, and a lot
fewer when the instrument ends on the third of the scale.

But not only did Stadler see this as a fundamental defect in the
clarinet's design, so did Mozart for whenever he had a chance to
write for basset clarinet, it was to low C that he invariably
gravitated. And, for the basset clarinet's brother, the basset
horn, we have example after example of how Mozart exploited the
low C particularly, using it is the end target in both scales
and arpeggios.

I'm still astonished at the response that was made saying that
the instrument is simply an 18th century relic. I see that
as a narrowness of vision and a rejection of the concept that
a player should take steps to expand his instrument's capability
as far as acoustics will allow. To accept the view that there
is no need for a clarinet that descends to low C is equivalent
to saying that there is no need for change and improvement, there
is no need for any contemporary effect (such as multiphonics) and
is nothing less than the remarkable view of "things should stay
as they are."

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org