Klarinet Archive - Posting 000336.txt from 1999/05

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Using one clarinet place of another
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 23:31:17 -0400

At 02:31 PM 5/9/99 -1300, Dan Leeson wrote:
>It seems to me that one of the parties who must bear the responsibility
>for inculcating clarinetists into the belief that which clarinet you
>use doesn't really matter has to be the German music publisher, Breitkopf
>& Hartel.
>
>Beggining in the latter part of the last century, they began to print
>their orchestral parts with the original and the transposed version
>included in a single part. They did this so as to increase sales
>to amateur orchestras where the clarinetists may not have had the
>A or C clarinet.
>
>So the Beethoven 7, for example, has both the A clarinet part and,
>following it, a part that says, "Transposed version for B-flat
>clarinet." I think that probably the first time I saw such a thing
>when I was 12 or 13, I thought that Beethoven himself had actually
>prepared both parts.
>
>"What a nice guy," was my thought. And from that point, it is a
>short road to hell.
>
>Even worse sometimes, one would find a part in the Strauss waltzes
>which would say "Clarinet in B-flat (Original for C clarinet)" and
>I once again presumed that Strauss sanctioned and approved this
>printing. After a while, every publisher took up this cudgel, but
>B&H were the first.
>
I still don't see the problem. By the late 19th century, the clarinet was
sufficiently advanced to play in more remote keys. The popularity of band
music scored for Bb clarinet had led to it being the dominant version, most
likely to be owned by the occasional player. I believe it was an EXCELLENT
idea for the publisher to transpose the part and make the music available
to amateurs! Whether the transpositions would have been approved by the
composers would surely have depended primarily upon the royalty
arrangements they had with the publishers! God bless the purists with the
resources to own all the clarinets; the rest of us (the envious) appreciate
the transpositions!

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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