Klarinet Archive - Posting 000691.txt from 1998/05

From: "Steven J Goldman, MD" <gpsc@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Fw: [kl] Re: A new concept in orchestral clarinets
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 12:17:09 -0400

It seems particularly to be a clarinet players disease. Clarinets seemed to
have changed much more slowly, esp. fingering systems, than the other member
of the woodwinds and this was because other players were never satisfied
with the status quo. Oboes and to a greater extent flutes when through a
flurry of experimentation, trial and error, in the nineteenth centuries.
Clarinetists were much less likely to try new ideas. By the way, the basset
clarinet and the basset horn (very different instrument than the modern one)
died out because technically they were inferior and players just did not
show enough interest to warrant makers to continue to experiment. Contrast
this to flutes where until the second quarter of the 19th century
instruments going down to C were acoustically inferior to those whose lowest
note was D. But there continued to be a great demand for C instruments and
this encouraged the makers to do it until they got it right!
And your right about innovation occurring in an instrument prior to
composers creating for it. Mozart wrote his concerto for a basset clarinet
because there was one to write for. He didn't write a concerto out of the
range of any extant instrument and wait patiently for some maker to invent
one. Beethoven did not extend the range of the piano. Piano makers were
busily improving the instrument and this allowed Beethoven to increase the
range he could write for.
Steve Goldman
sjgoldman@-----.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 1998 7:48 AM
Subject: [kl] Re: A new concept in orchestral clarinets

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

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