Klarinet Archive - Posting 000403.txt from 2005/08

From: Adam Michlin <amichlin@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Brahms 4th Symphony - 3rd Movement
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 11:54:02 -0400

I was curious in much the same way. Checking the score, there is, indeed, a
C clarinet part with goes written low Eb in Brahms 4 Mvt. 3 (measure 295,
same figure repeated in measure 297). Even more interesting is that the
part is marked a2, so the second clarinet player also runs into this issue.
Orchestration wise, the 2 clarinets are scored in unison with the bassoons.

Looking at the excerpt involving the low Eb, I would not expect this issue
to arise on an audition. The excerpt is pretty trivial from a difficultly
point of view and even if it was asked for I think it is safe to assume
players generally solve the problem by playing the excerpt (or movement) on
their Bb clarinets.

This raises an interesting question, though. It seems unlikely that Brahms
wrote with such an instrument in mind. Could he perhaps have expected his
performers to transpose the C parts onto Bb instruments and just been
sticking to older conventions about what key to write the instrument in? I
believe both Brahms and Wagner were known to do that with their horn parts,
as just one example (writing them as if for natural horns even though
chromatic horns were common to the day).

Or maybe Brahms was confused.

-Adam

At 11:20 AM 8/22/2005, dnleeson wrote:
>I have no better idea to offer Tom lthan Adam's suggestions but I
>am curious to know if Hadcock's statement about the c clarinet
>movement requiring a low E-flat is correct. If so, it either
>indicates a mechanism that I did not know existed on any clarinet
>of that period (namely a low e-flat) or else a confusion in
>Brahms' mind as to what was the lowest note on a clarinet.

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