Klarinet Archive - Posting 000077.txt from 2000/05

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: [Re: [kl] Early Beethoven, etc...]
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:15:12 -0400

Both Anna's original posting and the several responses to it are very
much mixed up in their understanding of what a basset clarinet is. And
I am amazed that no one of the many people on this list who understand
the situation jumped in to help them out.

A basset clarinet has almost no relationship with a low C bass clarinet,
but that is trying to describe something in the negative, so let me say
what a basset clarinet is rather than what it is not.

A basset clarinet is a soprano clarinet that descends to low written C.
That is all it is and nothing more. Models made by Selmer, Buffet, and
LeBlanc are manufactured only in A, but a few European manufacturers
will make one in B-flat. Anton Stadler, Mozart's clarinetist,
supposedly had three such instruments, one in C, one in B-flat, and one
in A and he may have used them as his regular orchestral instruments.

Until, perhaps, 10 years ago, the very existence of a basset clarinet
was under some scholarly attack. After all, no one had ever seen one,
there were no pictures or even examples of any, and the hypotheses about
the fact that the instrument was used by Mozart in K. 581 and 622 (at a
minimum) were all based on speculation caused by incomprehensible leaps
and jumps in published versions. These leaps/jumps were said to be
present because Mozart's clarinet went lower than the traditional
clarinet. While most of the world of clarinet accepted these ideas,
they were never proven until Pamela Poulin discovered a picture of
Stadler's instrument in Lithuania.

The argument that such a clarinet existed can be dated to a paper by
Dazely that was published in a British musicological journal ca. 1940.
He was the first person who said, "The text of the Mozart clarinet
concerto is incomprehsible unless one assumes that Stadler's clarinet
went down to low C." (This is a made up quote and summarizes what he
wrote. You won't find exactly these words in his paper.)

The first attempts to actually make such an instrument began in the late
1950s and individual samples could be found here and there, though they
often worked very badly. The three big manufacturers rushed into
production with models in the 1980s (perhaps earlier) but the early
models were not very satisfactory. Now, one can buy better ones right
off the shelf in many music stores. I tried to buy a pair (one in
B-flat and one in A) about 10 years ago and none of the big three would
make one in B-flat, telling me that "there is no repertoire for the
B-flat basset clarinet."

None of the above information is new in the slightest. A brief perusal
of the archives of Klarinet would have turned up 10,000 descriptions of
the instrument and would thus have made unnecessary the speculation on
what a basset clarinet is and the supposed relationship between it and a
low C bass clarinet.

Dan Leeson

Dodgshun family wrote:
>
> "Dodgshun family" <dodgshun@-----.nz> wrote:
> >>> this what is known as a basset clarinet or some adaptation of it?<<
>
> >>It's an extended bass clarinet, and I guess it is the same as a basset
> clarinet, now I think about it.<<<
>
> >Well, I might be the only one going nuts about this, but.... A low C bass
> is
> >NOT the same as a basset clarinet. Every reference I've ever seen about a
> >basset clarinet lists it as a an A clarinet with range extended to low C.
> >Leblanc has such a basset clarinet along with the more familiar basset horn
> in
> >F. A low C bass clarinet is just that, a bass clarinet. A basset clarinet
> >still retains the characteristics of the soprano clarinet.
>
> Sorry, I didn't make myself clear (I wrote that yesterday morning when I was
> still half-asleep and absolutely whacked after spending two full days
> rigging in the theatre). What I meant to say is that a low C bass is on the
> same principle as a basset clarinet - in essence, a bigger version of a Bb
> basset clarinet (if there is such a thing?). I guess a low C bass clarinet
> in A would be a basset bass clarinet?
>
> Anna
>
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--
***************************
** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
***************************

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