Klarinet Archive - Posting 000182.txt from 2006/12

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] clarinet and organ
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:29:15 -0500


>Bob and Deborah Shaw wrote:
>>I need suggestions for clarinet and organ music. I am playing at an organ
>>guild concert in mid January and need to find something. Thanks for your
>>suggestions.
>>
>http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Composers/Performers/000466.html

Bill Hausmann wrote,
>>And the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria works nicely, too,
>>with the organist playing the Bach prelude in C and the
>>clarinet playing the Ave Maria melody. Not flashy, just
>>pretty.

Whatever you chose, try to make sure you've got some rehearsal time with a
third person present to walk around the church or concert hall and do a
sound check while you're playing. That's especially true if it's a pipe
organ (with real speaking pipes instead of the just-for-looks pipes seen on
some electronic organs) and absolutely necessary if the organ is a tracker
(all-mechanical) in a church loft, because what you hear in the organ loft
may sound incredibly different from what your audience will hear down
below. It's all too easy to register an organ in such a way that, even
though the organ sounds quietly-voiced to the musicians, it will completely
drown out a clarinet from the audience perspective. (Voice of experience
here!)

The organist may think he or she already knows what registration to use for
a soloist, but if this person is a church organist accustomed to working
with solo *human voices*, you may need something quite different, because
the clarinet is a different type of pipe. You may also need to be careful
where you stand and what pipes the organist chooses if you're in a loft
with a tracker organ with a flower-box of smaller pipes at the front of the
loft (between you and the audience). That's because if you're playing
directly *toward* those pipes (across the tops of them), then your clarinet
may interact with some of the smaller flue pipes to create odd differential
tones.

Lelia Loban

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