Klarinet Archive - Posting 000510.txt from 2004/08

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] A bass clarinet
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 18:11:54 -0400

If you are directing your note to me, I sold the instrument to
the b.c. player of the Toronto S.O. about 10 years ago. And
about two years ago he sold it to someone in England.

But I would not accept just anyone's view that Selmer will no
longer make a b.c. in A. I don't know where you live, but I
would not talk to anyone except the American distributor of
Selmer, and that would be only for the purpose of getting the
email of the factory and sales office in Paris.

They have made them. They have the ability to make another one
at the drop of a hat. Their natural inertia is to say, "We don't
want to." So your next step is to threaten their children with
one hand whilst holding a lot money in the other.

I remember asking Selmer to make a basset clarinet in B-flat for
me, and some flunky in a suit told me, "But there is no
literature for such an instrument." Since that time he has
spoken with a lisp. I didn't buy one from them because I figured
that anyone who had such a schmuck working for them did not
deserve my business.

Your next step, if you don't like threatening people, is to
contact Steve Fox in Toronto. Ask him if he will make one.

After all anyone who will make a taragato and a basset clarinet
in G will do anything.

The most recent email I have for Steve is:
104022.3105@-----.com but he is one of the sponsors of
Klarinet and is on the list of makers.

Mark, you have got to stop taking no for an answer.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark H. Weinstein [mailto:mark.weinstein@-----.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 2:52 PM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: Re: [kl] A bass clarinet

Selmer no longer makes an A Bass clarinet, not even on special
order, so
it now bewcomes impossible to purchase one new. So are you
willing to
part with yours? Mark

Robert Howe wrote:
>
> > 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
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
------
> Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc.
http://www.woodwind.org

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http://www.woodwind.org

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