Klarinet Archive - Posting 000485.txt from 1999/10

From: CmdrHerel@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Altissimo on bass clarinet - A story
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 19:20:59 -0400

So one day in grad school, I was handed the clarinet part to Britten's opera,
Albert Herring.

"Nifty," I thought, since I like opera, and I like playing clarinet. I
flipped through the part, came to the pages with bass clarinet and thought,
"Not so nifty..." since I didn't own a bass clarinet, and from the range of
the part, not only did I need to borrow one, I needed to borrow one that
worked.

So I dug though our school's collection and dragged our best one to rehearsal
and cacked the part probably worse than I've ever cacked anything. Not even
close to nifty...

In the next three weeks, I went through ALL the school's basses, borrowed two
from colleagues, and ordered every possible strength of bass clarinet reeds
to get it all to work with my mouthpiece.

The part continued to reek every rehearsal, and I became increasingly
humiliated and terrified as we approached the opening night. If you've ever
heard or played Herring, you know that there is a beautiful, weaving
counterpoint with bass clarinet and alto flute about... three minutes? long.
Maybe longer - it seemed like a half hour at the time. During this part, for
reasons I never investigated, NOTHING is happening on stage... It's dark up
there so the only thing the audience has to do is listen to the bass clarinet
and alto flute...

By the dress rehearsal I was still screwing around with the best of the horns
I'd borrowed and experimenting with fingerings... And could not play the
part! I mean, entire *sections* were left out because I could not get the
altissimo and some of the high range to work. The flute player had lost a
year of her life by then. The conductor... well who knows, since I refused
to make eye contact with him.

The big day arrived, and the gods must have conferred to give me a slight
break, because by some lucky accident, that morning I found the right
strength of reed, the right mouthpiece, and the right clarinet to get some
altissimo notes. Well, that's all kinds of nifty, but now that the notes
worked, I needed to learn the part!

I spent the morning making up my own fingerings. No joke. I wish I'd copied
my part because it was outrageous - it was all diagrams over the notes for my
fingerings... Diagrams, arrows, circles... I worked it as best I could and
stopped before my chops were blown.

The Night comes. The lights go down. The show starts without a hitch...
Then comes... The Part... Oh God. We start it. It starts in a range I can
play. We go on... Intonation is great. Phrasing is great, style's all
there... Here comes Mr. Altissimo passage...

I took a huge breath, (where it was marked and circled) read my fingering
diagrams, arrows, circles, notes to myself... And every last phrase sang.
Every single note. The flute player was a treasure and worked her part into
passages she'd never heard before! When we finished, half the orchestra was
chuckling, (I was shaking) and the flute player, trying not to laugh, simply
says, "You xxxxx." I think it is one of the best compliments I've ever
gotten.

We did it again the next night, and while it worked a second time, it somehow
didn't have the same drama and... "edge" it had the night before... :D

Teri Herel

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