Klarinet Archive - Posting 000130.txt from 2001/09

From: Virginia Anderson <assembly1@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Bass Clarinet Solo Literature
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 10:06:15 -0400

on 5/9/01 9:15 am, Heidi Kirsch <hekirs02@-----.com> wrote:

> I am an undergraduate senior music education major.
> My major instrument is the clarinet, but I also love
> to play the Bass Clarinet. Does anyone know of any
> good quality music solo literature that was written
> specifically for the Bass Clarinet?
>

Hi Heidi (and all),

(with apologies to other list members who already have seen this suggestion
before)

You might try _Why Not?_, available free by going to the Experimental Music
Catalogue (EMC) <http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk> and following the links
to the clarinet page. It will be sent at your request as a pdf file by
e-mail.

You might also want to audition the types of music out there and whether
they're for you by listening to CDs. For this you might try the bass
clarinet list (at <http://www.newmusic.org>). Sparnaay and Bok have CDs out
- as do others, but the music I really like is Ian Mitchell's CD _the edge
of the world_, which has music by Christopher Hobbs (Why Not? (solo bass)
and 17 One-Minute Pieces for Bass Clarinet and Casio MT-750), Dave Smith
(Off-Peak Single From Symi (solo bass)), John White (A Little Souvenir from
Costa Mijas (bass and piano)), Cornelius Cardew (Mountains (solo bass)), and
Barney Childs (the edge of the world (bass and pipe organ)).

This is really classy best-quality stuff - the only limitation for your
purposes may be the difficulty of some of the pieces. Stylistically it's
modern-postmodern: the Cardew modernist but influenced by Bach; the White,
Hobbs, and Smith with all sorts of tuneful references, both art and popular;
the Childs very noisy and scarily affective. If you're a pretty nimble
undergrad. and have time to practice, I'd recommend either the Hobbs _Why
Not_ (but it's C extension bass, as is the Smith, which is about the same
difficulty) or the White _Costa Mijas_ (for regular short bass). The _17
One-Minute Pieces_ are really, really fun, but it's almost impossible to
find this model keyboard, and the Cardew and Childs are virtuoso top-pro
pieces.

Ian is selling some copies directly at a discount (you can find his address
and details on this CD, including review notes, on the EMC site), but prices
are in GB pounds; you might try Harmonia Mundi or Black Box
<http://www.blackboxmusic.co.uk> to get it using US dollars or credit cards.
I claim partial influence in that I work for the EMC, but the EMC does not
profit from Ian's record; rather I advertise it without personal gain
because I feel that this is the best bass clarinet CD in years and perhaps
ever.

Cheers,

Virginia
--
Virginia Anderson
Leicester, UK
<vanderson@-----.uk>
Experimental Music Catalogue: <http://www.experimentalmusic.co.uk>
...experimental music since 1969....

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