Klarinet Archive - Posting 000186.txt from 1999/07

From: James Langdell <jamesc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] common sense and clarinet literature
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 17:54:43 -0400

"Will Shattuck" <willpsha@-----.com> wrote:
>Second, I was wondering if someone or some people can point me to some
>standard clarinet literature and some clarinet alone music.

You can find a lot about clarinet alone music in a book called
"Solos for Unaccompanied Clarinet: An Annotated Bibliography
of Published Works" by James E. Gillespie, Jr. This was published
in 1973, so there's a lot of works that have been written since
then (yay!), but there's interesting background on about 100 pieces,
including comments from the composers.

For example, Gillespie's entry on the Stravisky "Three Pieces for
Clarinet Solo" includes these comments published in a "Woodwind
World" article by Harry Gee based on what Harry's teacher Gaston Hamelin
said was told to him by Stravinsky:

The first piece, played entirely in the chalumeau register,
pictures a rather desolate scene. It might also portray a
person contemplating a problem...

In the second scene, long arpeggi extending into the high
register give the listener a description of birds... The
section of great contrast is voiced in the low register.
The soft execution of grace-notes portrays a cat creeping
towards the birds. However, they seem to be untroubled
by the lurking cat and fly away...

The third piece twists and turns with jazz influence of the
1920s. This movement presents some interesting problems
in rhythm because the composer constantly shifts the flow of
the meter...

Given the four-degrees-of-separation (and now five, as I write this)
of these comments from Stravinsky himself, the association
of the clarinet with cats is interesting. Didn't Stravinsky
write a cat song for three clarinets and voice around the same
time as the "Three Pieces"?

Like Leila, I've never know a cat that didn't protest against
the sound of a clarinet. (Our siamese, Sing Lee, would butt her
head against my ankles when she'd catch me practicing.) I've also
long been puzzled by Prokofiev assigning the clarinet to the cat
in "Peter and the Wolf". Perhaps Russian clarinets are different...
or perhaps Russian cats are different?

--James Langdell jamesc@-----.com
Sun Microsystems Menlo Park, Calif.

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