Klarinet Archive - Posting 000932.txt from 1998/07

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Mozart and the right clarinet
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 08:10:37 -0400

Bill Edinger has wandered into one of the most complex and difficult
issues about the history of the clarinet; i.e., why do we, of almost
all orchestral musicians, have this plethora of instruments that we
have to shlep around to concerts. Now Bill restricted himself to
the A clarinet, but it is a much bigger question than that.

Why do we have C, B-flat, B-natural, A, A-flat, G, F, E-flat and
D clarinets? What purpose is served by this phenomenon? And this
is true for bass clarinets and alto clarinets too: three kinds of
bass clarinets and three or four kinds of alto clarinets.

Certainly oboe players, flutists, and bassoonists don't have anything
like this (although there is a bassoon in B-flat, and flutes in
a small array of keys). Bill suggests that the issue has to do with
timbre, namely that the character of sound is different from one
pitched clarinet to another, and, though he did not say so, he was
leaning in the direction of suggesting that this is the reason why
composers request clarinets of varying pitches; i.e., the sound
character.

Actually, I think it to be the other way round. A composer selects
a clarinet of a certain type for entirely different reasons, and then,
having done so, winds up with an instrument that has a different
sound character that s/he then is able to exploit.

The sound character turns out to be the tail of the dog and, as such,
does not wag it. But even though the composer did not chose a clarinet
in X because of the sound character of a clarinet in X, the choice of
instrument causes that sound character to be part of the pallette of
sound, so if we chose a different instrument, say a clarinet in Y because
we wish to do so, then we get a different pallette than the composer
visualized in the composition's construction.

It is an amazingly complex problem which most clarinet players do not
think about, but it is a part of our history nevertheless. And,
furthermore, clarinetists are in agreement with it providing that the
choice between X and Y is big enough. Namely, no one would chose to
use an E-flat clarinet in place of a bass clarinet in B-flat, because
the sound character would be so terribly noticeable. But because it
is less so when the A is used in place of the B-flat and vice versa,
it has become common practice.

So it turns out to be a matter of degree.

Bill Edinger, you sure opened up a can of yucky worms!!!

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