Klarinet Archive - Posting 000122.txt from 1999/01

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Basset horn vs. basset clarinet
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 09:04:56 -0500

On Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:44:42 +0000 (GMT), roger.shilcock@-----.uk said:

> There IS such a thing as a bass trumpet though - Alexander makes them,
> for instance - or did. It seems to differ little from a valved tenor
> trombone except for the shape. Janacek asks for it in the Sinfonietta.
> Compared with both the (slide) trombone and other instruments of
> around the same pitch (e.g., the euphonium), it has a startling
> attack, which I might describe as "crackling".

It's of course used in the 'Ring' fairly extensively, and Wagner was
probably the first established composer to write for it. Strauss used
it in Macbeth and Elektra, and Stravinsky in the Rite and Canticum
Sacrum.

Janacek has it in House of the Dead as well as the Sinfonietta, as Roger
says -- in fact, there are two, going na-na-na na na-na throughout the
opening fanfare, in unison.

Funnily enough, I've played one! Well, perhaps 'played' is the wrong
word for it. Berio wrote a theatre piece called 'Recital', in which
there's a little bit of music for 5 players from the band appearing
onstage, playing clarinet, bass clarinet, viola, bass trumpet and
trombone. Everybody has to switch instruments each time the bit of
music recurs, so when you get your clarinet back, it's a bit, well,
*used*.....

The idea is that when the clarinet/bass clarinet pair or the bass
trumpet/trombone pair have each other's instruments, the result is
closer to what is written..... The poor old viola player gets the dirty
end of the stick as usual, but usually makes it dirtier.....

OK, I'll shut up. Opus number Yuck, definitely a pre-retrovirus work.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... He's alive, Jim. Should I shoot him again?

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