Klarinet Archive - Posting 000486.txt from 2004/08

From: Robert Howe <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] A bass clarinet
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 00:18:11 -0400

> Mahler and Schoenberg both wrote for the A Bass on a regular basis. Both
> were experienced conductors, especially Mahler. Hence there is
> not the shadow of a doubt that at least high profile orchestras in Austria
> kept and used A-bassclarinets.

What's to debate? I have an A bass clarinet, and so does the Philly
Orchestra, and I have seen others for sale. They were a standard part of
German orchestral clarinet playing from Wagner to Schoenberg. I don't
understand why this is an issue, don't people read Forsythe and Piston and
other textbooks of orchestration? I just heard Cleveland do the Mahler 7th,
and the part is written about 50/50 between A and Bb basses. Was Mahler
too stupid to tell that the player had only one clarinet?

My A bass is a Selmer and the sound is so fine, SOOOOO fine, that it has
been borrowed by other players, including a local professional, for its tone
quality alone--some other players have read Bb parts on it a half step
higher, in order to get the timbre of this fine bass clarinet. No, I am NOT
making this up.

The height of A bass clarinet stupidity is found in Gunther Schuller's
Sonata for soprano and bass clarinets, which starts with both players on Bb
instruments but in the third movement calls for, yes you've guessed it, both
players to change to A... No, I am not making THIS up either.

Please, don't let anyone carry this discussion into C and D clarinets...

And by the way, Dan Leeson, Ginny Benade says "Hi".

Ciao

Robert Howe

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