Klarinet Archive - Posting 000131.txt from 2008/01

From: "Penny Ward Marcus" <pennyw@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Which clarinet woes (was Bartok Contrasts)
Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:08:22 -0500

For many years I understood that the majority of clarinetists in Great
Britain played nearly all parts on Bb clarinets, starting a craze for low Eb
keys on their instruments. I thought that they performed their solo
repertoire on Bb as well, including the Mozart. I can't be certain who, or
for how long this went on, because I wasn't really paying that much
attention to the idea, having a perfectly good A clarinet on hand. This may
have something to do with the British band being a major musical entity, and
with orchestra having slightly less snob value.

As a (former mediocre) horn player, I can tell you that brass players do
indeed routinely play the instrument of convenience or personal preference,
especially true for trumpet players. Horn players routinely play parts on
descant for ease of playing, as the modern horn makes certain passages very
high and difficult in standard F or Eb horn. In fact, all early horn parts
on modern double horn are a compromise from the original horns being
adjusted by crook length to be in the tonic or dominant of the piece. Most
horn parts were divided between the upper and lower voices in these two keys
and reflect the choice of horn needed for solos. That's why so many times
you don't know that the 3rd horn is playing the huge solos behind you in
orchestra instead of the 1st. In modern works, the horn player simply
chooses the smoothest transitions for whether using the Bb or F side for the
most part, and this has to do with which partial you are on with a given
fingering, and where you need to go from there. Trills are even done
between the two sides of the horn on occasion. While I do know many horn
players who play on natural horn, even including the Mozart Concerti, and
while I was made to learn to do it for the sake of hand technique, I would
dare say that unless you are a specialist on natural horn, the majority of
players are very happy to use their modern valves to play anything.

My clarinet choice is usually based simply on how much time I have to
switch, how long the passage is, how cold the clarinet has gotten, etc. The
clarinet was in such a state of design flux during the late 1800s and early
1900s that I think most composers would have been hard pressed to actually
cite a preference, and chose based on what seemed to be the better key from
a compositional/theoretical point of view. Not all of them were so attuned
to nuances of orchestration, and I believe that only a handful had
first-hand knowledge of the difficulties of playing the wind instruments.
As has been pointed out, their scores were often changed by copyists and
editors at will. In the end, I have a hard enough time keeping myself with
workable A, Bb, and Eb instruments, without the added costs of basset horn,
basset clarinet, C, and D clarinets. At $3000-$12,000 per instrument, it
is beyond my humble finances. My vote is for the best instrument available
for the job, played as well as possible, being as true to the score as is
practical. I have heard some very fine performances on the "wrong"
instruments!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 4:02 PM
Subject: RE: [kl] Bartok Contrasts

> Interesting point about which clarinet to use at an audition.
>
> A few years ago one of the locatl symphony orchestras had an audition for
> first clarinet. One very fine player had brought only a B-flat clarinet
> with
> him, but he was asked play some parts of the slow movement of K. 622. He
> did
> so on the B-flat clarinet. After he played, he was thanked and his
> audition
> was over.
>
> After he left, one of the auditioners commented that he would not even
> consider a person who would play K. 622 on a B-flat clarinet, even during
> an
> audition.
>
> I do not offer this story to support the use of one clarinet over another,
> but the argument was made by Michael Rusinek that, "Certainly at an
> audition, the only people that possibly will care if you are playing on
> the
> 'wrong' clarinet are the clarinet players, if they can tell at all."
>
> [I changed Michael's double quotes to single quotes because in quoting
> what
> he said, I had double quotes inside of doubles quotes.]
>
> Dan Leeson
> dnleeson@-----.net
> SKYPE: dnleeson
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Woodwind.Org 2008 Donation Drive has started. Visit
> https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ for more information.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.13/1213 - Release Date: 1/7/2008
> 9:14 AM
>

------------------------------------------------------------------
The Woodwind.Org 2008 Donation Drive has started. Visit
https://secure.donax-us.com/donation/ for more information.
------------------------------------------------------------------