Klarinet Archive - Posting 000319.txt from 1999/05

From: "William J. Maynard" <klarinet@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] high clarinets
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 20:22:28 -0400

In the development of the clarinet there were instruments made, and played,
in the keys of F, G , Ab and Bb, in addition to the more common A, Bb, C , D
and Eb. The B natural clarinet,in my experience, came in the form of a
pieces de rechange, where it would be a longer right-hand section to the C
clarinet. I recall Mozart wrote for this in Idomeneo and Cosi. The single
example I have seen of this was in a set made by Baumann, the French maker.
The lower section was stamped "h." Although I can't come up with many
examples of writing for the higher clarinets, there must have been enough
written because in my collection alone I had several examples of each, and I
have seen many others in museums, etc. The Ab, as pointed out, seemed to be
popular with Italian bands. The most recent modern Ab I have seen was made
by Leblanc and was available in the US at least 10 years ago. The most
interesting to me is the high Bb. I had two in my collection at one time.
The first was made by TIERCELIN, a French maker about 1850. boxwood/ivory,
11 brass keys. It measured 12.7 inches and played an 8va above the normal
Bb. It is beautifully made by a professional maker, and played very well.
That is for the little I played it. Needless to say, the player needed the
hands of a 4 year old ! The other example had no makers stamp, made of
blackwood, 13 silver keys, 2 RH rings, measuring 12.4 inches. This also
played well, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum collection. Although I
looked for music for this little clarinet I was not successful, and assumed
it played normal Bb parts sounding the 8va higher. Nothing more than a guess
on my part.

The recent discussion about Pamela Weston's edition of the Mozart interested
me because I sold her the music about 3 years ago. I bought it in the late
80's more as a curiosity rather than a "serious" edition of the concerto. It
came with the piano part and 4 string parts. I compared the string parts to
an early copy, not a published edition, I found in the Staatsbibliothek,
Berlin. As I recall (I did not make a measure for measure comparision) the
string parts and the score were the same, or very close. I apologize for the
lack of scholarship but at the time I didn't think it important. I did not
keep a copy before selling it, and do not have Pamela's edition, so I have
no opinion in the discussion. But what struck me at the time was that the
concerto must have been popular at the time of publication, which my
accession list is about 1805 (?). According to Grove's Schwencke rescored
Handel's Messiah, Bach's B minor Mass, and other works. That is to say he
apparently took major works and rearranged them for other settings. Without
any research on my part, I took my clarinettists ego and decided it was a
popular piece redone for piano. If in fact this is true then the work had
enjoyed more popularity at the time then has been thought.

Bill Maynard

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