Klarinet Archive - Posting 000757.txt from 1998/05

From: Michael Bryant <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] History of clarinet choir?!
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 03:31:15 -0400

Some Notes on the Origins and History of the Clarinet Choir
scanned from Clarinet and Saxophone December 1990, Vol 15/4

Works for groups of clarinets and basset-horns pre-date by many years the
invention of the bass clarinet, perfected by Sax in 1838. The trios and
other works by Mozart, Druzecky, Stadler and Boufil, among others, come
readily to mind. The earliest clarinet quartets for four B flat clarinets
include three or four technically quite difficult works in a popular style
by James Waterson (1834-1893). He was bandmaster to the Viceroy of India and
had a close association with Henry Lazarus and The Military School of Music
at Kneller Hall. His first quartet is dated 1885. Waterson also wrote three
trios and a number of duos. Some have survived in hand-written copies by
James Parks, professor of clarinet at Kneller Hall. The French clarinettist
and saxophone player Louis Mayeur (1837-1894) and the German clarinettist
and composer Robert Stark (1847-1922) each wrote quartets for two B flat
clarinets, basset-horn and bass. Stark also wrote a good trio for 2 B flats
and basset horn and some duo studies.

The little E flat clarinet established a niche for itself in the military
band, particularly in Germany, from about 1805. The limiting factor with
regard to the foundation of the clarinet ensemble was the contrabass and it
cannot be regarded as having been completed until the advent of a successful
design, Fontaine-Besson's clarinette-pedale, exhibited in Paris in 1889 and
patented in 1891. The acoustician Charles Houvenaghel, working for Leblanc,
was responsible for further refinements in 1910.

The earliest known clarinet ensemble was formed by the Belgian clarinettist
and saxophone player Gustave Poncelet (18441903) at the Brussels
Conservatoire, where he taught both instruments from 1871. His ensemble of
up to about twenty-seven players gave many successful concert tours. Richard
Strauss heard them in 1896 and was evidently impressed. In his revision of
Berlioz's treatise on instrumentation of 1905 he refers to their arrangement
of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 for twenty-two clarinets.

Among the most distinguished of Poncelet's students were Gustave Langenus
(1883-1957) and Joseph Schreurs (1863-1941 [?]). Both went to the United
States, one settling in New York and the other in Chicago. One of Joseph
Schreurs' students, Clarence Warmelin, first clarinet of the Minneapolis
Symphony Orchestra, took an interest in clarinet ensembles. He moved to
Chicago and organised an ensemble there between 1933 and about 1938 or a
little later. The size and composition of the group varied. It rehearsed
regularly for two hours on Sunday mornings. The famous clarinet quartet
bearing Warmelin's name came from this ensemble and gained nation-wide
recognition through their concert tours, broadcasts and recordings.

Percy Grainger (1882-1961) settled in New York in 1914 and became
naturalized in 1918. Among a myriad of other activities, he spent some weeks
during many Summers teaching, conducting and performing at the Interlochen
Music Camp, near Traverse City, Michigan. He played the soprano and baritone
saxophones and took a life-long interest in reed instruments [1 ]. In the
course of his connection with Interlochen he made several arrangements for
homogeneous wind groups, most commonly saxophones or clarinets, of works by
J.S. Bach, des Pres, Jenkins, Lawes, le Jeune, and Scarlatti, between 1937
and 1946. Some of them are in the Granger Archive in Sydney, Australia. The
clarinet choir arrangement of 'The Immovable Do' or 'The Cyphering C',
written between 1933 and 1939, originally for nine strings, string orchestra
or full orchestra, was publ ished by Schirmer in 1941 together with four
other versions. The Three Ravens, based on an old English tune of that name,
was written long before in 1902, was revised 1942-3 and published by Schott,
London in 1950. lt is scored for baritone solo, chorus and five clarinets,
or flute and four clarinets.

Meanwhile Russian-born Simeon Bellison ( 1883-1953) decided to settle in the
United States in 1921 on being offered the post of first clarinet of the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra, which he held until 1948. He formed a clarinet
ensemble in New York in 1927. It began as a student octet and gradually grew
in size, having at some stage a membership of about seventy-five. Many of
the players in his ensemble later became well known as players and teachers,
such as Sydney Forrest, Leon Russianoff, Kalman Bloch, (who was Bellison's
student at the age of thirteen); and David Weber. Weber was born in Vilnius,
Lithuania, and led the ensemble during the final years. It was disbanded in
1938. Bellison made many large-scale arrangements from the classical and
symphonic repertoire for this ensemble and these can be found in his
extensive library, now housed at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem,
where the librarian in charge is Claude Abravanel. The programmes of the
concerts that Bellison's ensemble gave at the Town Hall and Carnegie Hall
can be seen at the public library in New York.

The term 'clarinet choir' appears to have become first firmly established in
the United States in 1952. In the Winter 1950-51 issue of the magazine
Clarinet, reference is made to the clarinet ensemble of James De Jesu on
Long Island. In the magazine 'Symphony' in 1951, Lucien Cailliet contributed
an article on 'The Clarinet Ensemble'. The term 'clarinet choir' was
originated by Hal Palmer in 1952, and with Russell Howland from Fresno State
College he started a clarinet choir at the High Plains Music Camp at Hays,
Kansas. Howland made many arrangements, some of which have been published by
the Interlochen Press and elsewhere. In the October 1952 issue of 'The
Instrumentalist', DeJesu wrote an article using the new term, entitled
Improving Clarinet Sections via Choirs.

The idea began to spread throughout the United States, promoted by visits to
schools and colleges by Leblanc's education director Don McCathern and
composer and arranger Alfred Reed. Reed's Caribbean Suite of 1955 was the
first original work for clarinet choir. Groups were formed at that time by
Harold Harvey in Montana, Arthur Christman at the Juilliard, William
Stubbins at Michigan, Thomas Ayres at lowa, George Waln at Oberlin (where
Gustave Langenus's music collection is now preserved), Frank Stacow at
Lebanon Valley College. Harvey Hermann, having returned from a long period
of residence in Japan in 1959, founded the Champaign-Urbana Clarinet Choirs
in May 1965.

The best known clarinet choir in Europe today (1990) is a Dutch and Belgian
group directed by Walter Boeykens [2].

Notes

[1] Further information can be found in Jullian Pilling's article Percy
Grainger and the Saxophone in this journal, March 1987, Vol 12/1 p36, and in
A Saxophone Arranger Looks at Grainger by Roger Cawkwell, also in this
journal, December 1987, Vol 12/4 p 17. See also Chapter 8, Music for Wind
Instruments, by Thomas C Slattery, in The Percy Grainger Companion, edited
by Lewis Foreman, Thames Publishing, 1981.

[2] See 'The Walter Boeykens Clarinet Choir', in this joumal, December 1988
Vol 13/4 p24 and also Walter Boeykens - an interview, with Judith Kunst,
June 1988, Vol 1312, p15.

Michael@-----.uk

Henrik von Sydow wrote
Subject: [kl] History of clarinet choir?!

>I would be grateful for info - any at all! - about the origin of the
>clarinet choir as ensemble form. What role was played by Leblanc? Lucien
>Cailliet? American high schools/colleges? When did you experienced
>gentlemen/-women first learn about the existence of "a gaggle of
clarinets"
>playing together? This a fifties thing?
>
>[Reason: Have formed cl. ch. Not so common in Sweden, Europe. Will address
>audience on this subject during summer evening concert.]
>
>Any web page to recommend?
>
>Henrik von Sydow
>
>
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