Klarinet Archive - Posting 000539.txt from 2002/09

From: "John P. Varineau" <jvarineau@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] My attempt to formalize my unstructured ideas
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 22:38:04 -0400

How great it is to have Dan Leeson back.

Regarding the controversy over which clarinet to use, I've never seen or
heard an argument that takes into account the make of the clarinet,
mouthpiece a reed that are also part of the clarinet sound.

For the sake of argument, let us all agree that an A clarinet sounds
differently than a Bb, and a Bb sounds differently than an C clarinet.
So as to not derail the argument, we won't use adjectives like dark or
bright. They just sound different. And Composer A knows this and writes
specifically for clarinet X. But which clarinet X? As well all know,
not only do variously pitched clarinets sound different, but various
brands also sound different. So brand X of an A clarinet may sound more
like a brand Y's Bb clarinet. And brand W's Bb with brand G mouthpiece
and brand M reed may sound very much like an Eb or D clarinet. What did
the composer have in mind? When s/he wrote for a Bb clarinet, what sound
did s/he have in mind. It's not as simple as playing the correctly
pitched clarinet.

What if the composer's conception of a clarinet tone is based upon what
we today would consider a poor representation of clarinet tone?

And what about the various fingering systems? We know that there are two
versions of what we call a bassoon: the German fagott and the french
basson. Believe me, they produce to very different sonic pictures. To
my ears, the french basson sounds much like the saxophone from Dan's
original post. Yet virtually every orchestral player outside of France
plays the German fagott regardless of the piece they are playing. Have
you ever been to an orchestra concert in this country where the
bassoonists play on the french basson for Debussy's "La Mer" and then
pull out their fagotts for the Brahms symphony on the same program? The
Oehler system clarinet sounds very different from the Boehm and Albert
systems. How many of us pull out our Oehler to play the Brahms sonatas
-- yes I know that the clarinetists in the Chicago Symphony are now
playing on German system clarinets for German composers.

As for Dan's reductio ad absurdem example of the use of soprano
saxophone, it is very interesting and instructive to read detailed
biographies of great composers (like David Cairns' monumental two volume
biograhpy of Berlioz, or de la Grange's four volume Mahler) and find out
what substitutions the great composer themselves used when they presented
their own music and the specified instrument was not available. Dan
could probably cite a long litany of examples from Mozart's life where he
adapted some of his compositions for other instruments because they were
what was available at the moment. Sometimes it really bothered these
composers, other times they were unfazed.

John Varineau

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