Klarinet Archive - Posting 000250.txt from 2004/03

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@------.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] reasons for basset clarinets
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 14:12:29 -0500

BEresman@------.com wrote:
> My reason for asking is not so much that i am concerned that the long "B"
> sounds *better* or not on a basset instrument, but that it sounds
> different. If a composer had the sound of a certain clarinet in mind,
> should it not be that instrument on which it is played? I don't mean
> maker, of course, or even necessarily fingering system, although there are
> certainly those who consider the latter to be important. But if Berlioz
> wrote a C clarinet part in his fantastic symphony, should it not be played
> on a C clarinet? My understanding of an argument you have previously made
> is that he had in mind a certain sound which is produced by that
> instrument, and to use another instrument is to undermine his intent as
> composer and compromise the result of his creative genius.
>
> Is it not the same thing to use a C basset clarinet, which sounds different
> from a "standard" clarinet, for the same part? How is this not equally
> wrong?
>
> Brent Eresman
> YSI Precision Temperature
>
This note appears to be asking a question of a specific person, but
there is nothing to indicated which specific person you had in mind.

We have often spoken on this list about the reasons behind a particular
composer's use of a distinct clarinet pitch. I can speak on the answer
to that question in the realm of the classic and early romantic period
with some small authority. The decision in the case of Mozart and
Beethoven may have been influenced because of the way a particular
clarinetist sounded, but that was far and away not the main reason for
the composer's choice of his clarinet pitch.

When Mozart or Beethoven and even Schubert (up to Mendelssohn) chose a
particular clarinet pitch, they did so because they were required to do
so by the rules of composition and the restrictions of writing for the
clarinet as evidenced by every single clarinet tutor in use between 1750
and 1850. In effect, it was illegal EVER to write for a clarinet in, for
example, written A major.

Mozart even wrote a note (in English!!) to his pupil Thomas Atwood in
which he states the preference for clarinets based entirely on the key
of the work being written; i.e., for this key you use a C clarinet, and
for that key you use a B-flat clarinet, and for the rest you use an A
clarinet, or else you don't use clarinets at all. There are concerti of
this period in which the clarinetist plays in the first and third
movements, but not in the second because the key was illegal for any of
the clarinets at hand. Take a look at Mozart's K. 488. The key is
F-sharp minor concert, and no clarinet was available to play in that key.

So you must disabuse yourself from the notion that Mozart wrote K. 622
for an A clarinet because he liked that sound better than any of the
other clarinets he had at hand (and particularly when played by Stadler
whose playing he said was magnficent).

--
Dan Leeson
leeson0@------.net