Klarinet Archive - Posting 000210.txt from 2009/10
From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Coolest
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:29:06 -0400
I think I figured out why he uses the A clarinet for the section of the
Rossini overture in e minor (concert pitch).
The relative major is G which would be three sharps for a B-flat clarinet
and one flat for an a clarinet.
With the overture written some 35 or so years after Mozart gave his
admonition to his pupil about writing for the clarinet in only two keys, C
and F, the situation had become more tolerant, though more than one sharp
was not considered appropriate for any member of the clarinet family until
late Mendelssohn. I think you should understand why.
In order to play in keys with sharps, the clarinet had to have additional
keys and holes put in it. It was not a big deal to put the hole in the
proper place so that it worked fine for the upper or the lower register, but
it was very difficult to put the hole in a place with the note worked OK for
BOTH registers. And that was the inhibiting factor which drove the process
whereby multiply pitched clarinets came to be.
The mentality (and it was damned clever) was this: if you can't play in a
particular key on the clarinet, then change the pitch of the clarinet. Kind
of like being in a boat on a river with bridges that can raise up to allow
the boat to pass through. But clarinets did not raise the bridge, they
lowered the water.
Dan Leeson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Nichols" <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] Coolest
On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:28 AM, Dan Leeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrote:
> When you say that the overture to Barber of Seville begins with a C
> clarinet
> playing in E major (then switching to E minor), you must first tell me if
> you are speaking about what Rossini did in the original manuscript or in
> some contemporary edition.
>
> If some contemporary publisher printed the part that way, it does not mean
> that that is the way that Rossini wrote it.
>
Thanks for responding to my question.
It's not a contemporary edition. What I have is a reprint of an old
(public domain) edition, which, from the typography and general style,
looks like it was originally printed by Breitkopf und Haertel.
Apparently the autograph manuscript for the overture doesn't exist
anymore, at least not according to the editors of the Baerenreiter
edition, as you can read here (page 16 of the PDF--or XXVII on the
printed page):
http://www.baerenreiter.com/html/download/pdfs/BA10506-Rossini_Barbiere_Vorwort_e.pdf
Now when we performed this last season in my orchestra, the parts we
were handed out contained two copies of the part. One was for
clarinets in C and A (and if memory serves, this one was actually
marked "original keys" or something like that), and the other was
transposed for Bb clarinet. The C and A version was identical to the
public domain version I had myself. There's also a public domain
score on IMSLP for the piece, and it also indicates that the clarinets
start out on C clarinets (in E major) and switch to A clarinets later
in the piece (very conveniently, seeing that the piece itself
modulates down a minor third at about that point). I also just took a
look at the first page of the score for the current Breitkopf edition
(which is on SheetMusicPlus), and it's written the same way.
So while I can't be sure Rossini wrote it that way, I haven't yet seen
anything that would indicate he didn't and everything I've seen
(which, admittedly, isn't that much) suggests that he did. The funny
thing is that I can't think of a good reason why Rossini (or his
publisher or whoever it was who made this decision) would start the
piece on C clarinet in that key, when he could have just as easily
started it on the A clarinet and then switch to the C clarinet at the
key change. There's plenty of time to make the switch, because the
clarinets rest for 10 bars immediately following the key change.
It just seems really weird the way it's written--in fact, it kind of
makes me wonder if players of the day might have been tempted to
ignore what the part says and transpose that section for the A to make
it sound better. (In fact, that's what I did when we performed this
piece, but only because I didn't have a C clarinet to play it on.)
> And there is another aspect to the question. The E minor portion of the
> overture would be written with 1 sharp (the key of the relative major),
> which is occasionally found in early clarinet performance so it is not a
> serious aberration of the classical clarinet using only the written keys
> of
> C and F. There are even two works of Mozart that are written in the key of
> 1 sharp.
OK. That makes sense. Part of what prompted me to ask this question
was that I was wondering how strict the C/F rule really was at that
time, so you cleared that up for me. So if you had an A clarinet, a
Bb clarinet, a B natural clarinet, and a C clarinet, you could play in
all keys except for concert Db and concert Ab with no more than one
sharp or flat in the key signature--for those, you'd still have to put
up with two sharps or two flats (I think I have that right :-) ) so
presumably composers writing for clarinets would just avoid those keys
altogether (am I right?).
> Further, it is important to know if the notes f#, c#, g#, d# are actually
> used in the E major portion of the overture.
Yes. Between the first and second clarinet parts, all four of those
notes are used at one point or another in that portion of the
overture.
> And finally this: in what year did Rossini write the overture to Barber of
> Seville. The keys in which clarinet were permitted to play were more
> lenient as time passed.
The overture was originally written for another of Rossini's operas,
called Aureliano in Palmira, which premiered in 1813. Rossini
apparently incorporated it into the Barber of Seville without
modification from the original Aureliano version (this is also
mentioned in the Baerenreiter edition's forward I gave the URL to).
So we're looking at 1813 or earlier. (The opera Barber of Seville
itself premiered in 1816, incidentally.)
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
