Klarinet Archive - Posting 000107.txt from 1999/08

From: <peter.stoll@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Orchestral Rep Question
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 13:08:20 -0400

Well, this is a really late response, but I've saved this one as I know
something about old Dr.Who music (I've tried but I can't help loving these
old low-budget sci-fi shows...) Some of the incidental music for DW was
written by Carey Blyton, English composer and nephew of famed children's
novelist Enid Blyton. He wrote a lot for woodwinds, including a track for
a ghastly sound that I think might have been a serpent in "The
Silurian's"-it was about as horrendous as that biblical Peter Schikele
piece on the same album as David Shifrin doing his Quartet. Anyway...check
out "Death To the Daleks" to hear Paul Harvey's London Saxophone Quartet
sounding great and funky...as Mr.Harvey played all the clarinets
extensively, I wonder if he was the mystery clarinet player...

On Thu, 6 May 1999 LeliaLoban@-----.com wrote:

> Gary Van Cott wrote,
> >What percentage of the work in the general orchestral repertoire has parts
> for Eb clarinet or bass clarinet and how does that compare to other less used
> instruments like contra-bassoon?>
>
> I don't know percentages, but one place to hear frequent use of bass and
> contrabass clarinets is in the soundtracks of old TV science fiction
> programs, such as "Dr. Who" and the first "Star Trek." The sound of bass or
> contrabass clarinet almost never means anything good. Usually it grumbles
> the leitmotif for Villain of the Week, Resistance is Futile, Alien Menace
> Approaching FTL, "Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!! EX-TER-MI-NATE!!!", etc..
>
> The use of bass clarinets is so strikingly frequent on "Doctor Who" up
> through the Tom Baker years (he played the role from 1974 to 1981) that it's
> made me curious about who played bass and contrabass clarinet for the BBC
> Radiophonic Workshop then, because he or she is/was a very proficient
> musician. Bb soprano clarinet was used prominently, too. I have the
> impression that the same person usually doubled all the solo clarinets, since
> they rarely overlapped. Most of the bass and contrabass parts didn't sound
> technically difficult (long, low, groans), but then the composer (Ron Grainer
> in the early years, at least) would toss in a wicked flourish that let the
> clarinetist show off. Anybody know who played those parts? By the
> mid-1980s, the BBC started replacing live musicians with a synthesizer much
> of the time. I miss the low clarinets in the more recent incarnations.
>
> Lelia
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Hieronymous (Court Astrologer, Demnos cultist): "You profane the sacred
> stone!"
> The Doctor: "Hello, there! Had a hard day in the catacombs?"
> Scriptwriter Louis Marks for Doctor Who, "The Masque of Mandragora,"
> BBCV 4642
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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