Klarinet Archive - Posting 000084.txt from 2002/11

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: reverse Mozart
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 00:45:52 -0500

At 04:51 PM 11/1/2002 -0800, Dan Leeson wrote:
>Bill, I believe that the military bands of the late 18th and early 19th
>centuries (which is the time that the B-flat clarinet evolved as the most
>popular member of the family) were mostly brass groups. I suspect that
>there may be a few works for military band but that was not the guiding
>consideration in their development. It was the classical orchestra of
>1760 to 1820 that was the more important consideration. Today, of course,
>the clarinet is very much a band instrument but I think we are mixing
>metaphors here.

Perhaps at the start, but the concert band of today, and even back in the
days of and before Sousa, etc., which grew out of the military band uses,
relatively to an orchestra, OODLES of clarinets. These clarinets are
invariably in Bb, because that is what works best in the band setting. I
still suspect that, although the A still seems to be preferred in the
orchestral setting, where keys that favor the strings are heavily used,
today's dominance of the Bb clarinet can be traced to the development of
the concert or symphonic band, as well as the later jazz band, where keys
favorable to the Bb clarinet are used.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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