Klarinet Archive - Posting 000399.txt from 1999/05

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] A-flat high soprano clarinet?
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 04:19:19 -0400

Was this the Apple recording? There's some very strange engineering on
that, if I recall correctly - I haven't played my copy in years, no longer
having suitable equipment; you seem to be hearing the man turning the
recording level down and back up with the increases/decreases in the
density
of the orchestration.

Roger Shilcock

On Mon, 10 May 1999, Tony Pay wrote:

> Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:55:49 +0100
> From: Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] A-flat high soprano clarinet?
>
> On Sun, 9 May 1999 13:40:31 EDT, LeliaLoban@-----.com said:
>
> > The threads on the C clarinet and timbres of different clarinets
> > interests me a lot, and makes me wonder about the A-flat "high
> > soprano clarinet" I saw advertised in the 1932 Selmer catalog. I
> > hadn't realized anything higher than the eefer was manufactured as
> > late as the 1930s. The Ab can't have been a very popular instrument,
> > since Selmer didn't illustrate it, although all the other clarinets
> > are illustrated with the exception of the BBb contrabass (a monster,
> > below the Eb contrabass). The 1932 Selmer Ab was available in the
> > Master Model (professional, Selmer's top of the line at the time).
> > It's unclear to me whether it may also have been offered as a Bundy
> > (intermediate) and/or Barbier (student) clarinet. Has anyone ever
> > played an Ab soprano? I'm afaid I know what it would sound like if I
> > played it (every rabid rat in the neighborhood would come running to
> > mama), but what's it sound like when you play it?
>
> I had to play one once in a piece written by the English composer John
> Tavener, called 'A Celtic Requiem'. We played and then recorded it,
> around 1971, with the London Sinfonietta under David Atherton, but I
> don't have the disc anymore.
>
> What happened was that Tavener wrote a stratospheric part for both
> piccolo trumpet and soprano saxophone, but was told by Alan Hacker that
> the latter was unplayable, and that his only chance was the Ab clarinet.
>
> So I borrowed one for the recording.
>
> I remember that there were lots of very loud passages, of which the
> highest note was a written A, sounding F# (ie, the equivalent of written
> super-G# above high C on the Bb clarinet, and that one had to be REALLY
> loud.
>
> I have to say that Tom Ridenour wouldn't have been impressed by the
> embouchure I had to use to get it on the disc.
>
> (Blood on the reed.
>
> String players writhing on the floor.
>
> You know the sort of thing.)
>
> I believe the instrument used to be known popularly in this country as
> 'the pig squeal'.
>
> Tony
> --
> _________ Tony Pay
> |ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
> | |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
> tel/fax 01865 553339
>
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>
>
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