Klarinet Archive - Posting 000083.txt from 2008/12

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bass/contrabassoon in gran Partitta
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:29:40 -0500

I'll bet it was nice, too. Fennel used a similar combination that included
a contrabass clarinet, and a string bass.

I suspect that the combination of string bass with any of a variety of wind
bass instruments might produce the same effect. Where I have played the work
with a contrabassoon (very begrudgingly, too), I felt that those sections in
which the manuscript requested pizzicato were simply empty and dull.

Simon, you have to ask why it was originally done with contrabassoon alone?
And I think the answer is going to be, "But title of the work is the
Serenade for 13 winds," which is a crazy kind of cockeyed inverse retro
logic.

And perhaps you might consider it sometime without the contrabassoon, but
with only the contra bass.

Dan Leeson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Aldrich" <simonaldrich@-----.ca>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 2:37 PM
Subject: [kl] Bass/contrabassoon in gran Partitta

> Up until the last time I did the gran Partitta, I had always played with
> a group that used a bass *or* a contrabassoon.
> The last time I performed it (in my orchestra's indoor summer series last
> year) we used bass *and* contrabassoon.
> The result was a sound combination so beautiful and transporting I would
> never have guessed a single instrument's sound could be so enriched by
> the addition of one instrument playing the same line.
> It must have something to do with that fact that they are unlike bass
> instruments. I have never heard a treble instrument's sound enhanced to
> the same degree by adding another treble instrument to the same line.
> The bass/contrabassoon combination produced an unbelievably rich, downy,
> gossamer pillow on which the rest of us floated.
> After experiencing the gran Partitta this way, I fear it will be hard to
> go back to doing it the kosher way (with a single bass or contrabassoon).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Simon Aldrich
>
> Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
> Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
> Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
> Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
> Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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