Klarinet Archive - Posting 000343.txt from 2005/06

From: John Dablin <jdablin@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Basset clarinets are regular orchestral instruments
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 03:12:33 -0400

On Sunday 19 Jun 2005 22:53, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
[ snip ]
>
> One cannot fairly make the comparison to the bass clarinet. From
> what I recall the bass clarinet was built to low C from earliest
> days---building on the basset horn---and the existence of basses
> descending to low E or Eb only is a compromise that was invented to
> make the instruments more portable for band use. The bass to low C
> is therefore the "standard" instrument written for in a great deal of
> the instrument's repertoire.

Is this true? In Walter Piston's "Orchestration", published 1955, he
writes "Bass clarinets have been made with a downward range to D,
sounding C, and modern Russian composers give evidence of in their
scores of the existence of bass clarinets descending to C, sounding
B-flat, the range given by Rimsky-Korsakoff, A bass clarinet
constructed by Rosario Mazzeo, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,
provides two further semitones, down to B-flat, sounding A-flat. At
the present time, however, one cannot with certainty count on having
sounds lower than C# on the bass clarinet". (I presume he meant C#
concert). Later he refers to an excerpt from Shostakovitch 7th
symphony: "the written C# cannot be reached by most instruments". This
suggests to me that, in the USA at least, low-C basses are a relatively
recent development.

I've got the idea from somewhere that Mahler never wrote below E-flat
for the bass, but would ask for bass clarinet in A to get a low C
concert. If this is twaddle perhaps someone could correct me.

John Dablin
Aylesbury UK

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