Klarinet Archive - Posting 001440.txt from 1998/05

From: Jeff Chan <Jeff.Chan@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Please help me / Chalumeau / clarion etc
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 14:55:21 -0400

I just thought I'd add my own experiences to this thread --

I just finished playing William Walton's "Suite from Henry V" wherein
the first clarinet is playing as high as altissimo A and B-flat,
doubling with *doubled* piccolos (both flutes playing piccolo). No way
to get all of that in tune, but I think that's what it is all about.

Lots of chamber music calls for playing above the altissimo G. One
example -- Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldate has an extended run
featuring lots of altissimo A's.

Composer's are beginning to use that portion of the clarinet range with
greater frequency. That's why many of the newer fingering charts and
extended technique books focus on the extreme altissimo. Ridenour's
fingering book has many fingerings for these notes.

Jeff Chan
jeff.chan@-----.com

Lee Hickling writes:
>
> Roger Shilcock wrote:
> >There are plenty of orchestral 1st clar. parts going up to "top" g#
> >and/or
> >a - Delius and Britten wrote parts going up to the B flat. The Spohr
> first
> >concerto
> >actually has an arpeggio passage ending on a top c.
> >Whatever Klose wrote in 18??, plenty of players do have to learn to
> play
> >these notes.
>
> Can't argue with you, Roger, because you've been in places I never got
> to.
> But I do think one could amend "plenty of players" to "some players.".
> In
> 55 years of clarinet playing I've never seen that Bb or C in a score.
> Of
> course, I've never played in a symphony orchestra of any kind,
> although I
> have held down first desk in symphonic wind ensembles. I've to play A
> in
> altissimo in concert bands a couple of times, and I think I learned B
> and C
> as well, but I have never been asked to play them. Why, if a composer
> wants
> those notes, doesn't he score the part for an Eb sopranino?
>

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