Klarinet Archive - Posting 000211.txt from 2010/05

From: "Keith Bowen" <keith.bowen@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Clarinets for Stravinsky and DeFalla?
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 04:16:29 -0400

Dan

Of course not. I checked the original score of the first edition, in the
Bodleian Library.

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leeson [mailto:dnleeson@-----.net]
Sent: 22 May 2010 06:05
To: The Klarinet Mailing List
Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinets for Stravinsky and DeFalla?

While I have played the bass part in Rite of Spring on several occasions, I
have no idea what Stravinsky requested in the autograph score. The part was

always in B-flat, but that may have been a transposition made by the
publisher.

One can draw no conclusions about what the composer wrote from the
performance parts.

Dan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Bowen" <keith.bowen@-----.com>
To: "'The Klarinet Mailing List'" <klarinet@-----.com>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 3:45 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinets for Stravinsky and DeFalla?

> Dan,
>
> You are of course correct. However, Stravinsky did call for the bass in A
> once, in the Rite of Spring (1913), three years after Firebird, so he at
> least knew by then. I didn't discover any other Stravinsky uses.
>
> It's likely that Stravinsky would have known the Berlioz orchestration
> manual in the Strauss revision of 1904. Strauss says: "The new clarinets
> in
> Bb and bass clarinets have a C# key [written Eb]. Bass clarinets in A are
> now used very rarely; one frequently has to transcribe them in Bb."
> However,
> they appear in many instrument manufacturers' catalogues until the 1950s,
> and were quite readily available till the 1930s (how often they were
> actually made is another question).
>
> Strauss' mixture of clarinets is indeed confusing but I think the evidence
> in the scores is that he selected exactly the ones that he wanted. My
> hypothesis is that as well as the timbre, the 'local' key in which an
> instrument was played was a significant factor to some composers. It's a
> topic I hope to return to one day.
>
> Keith
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Leeson [mailto:dnleeson@-----.net]
> Sent: 21 May 2010 23:03
> To: The Klarinet Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinets for Stravinsky and DeFalla?
>
> I thank Lelia for summarizing the clarinet requirements of both the De
> Falla
>
> and the Stavinsky work. I want to comment on the Stravinsky.
>
> She is correct in reporting the three clarinets in A plus a bass clarinet
> in
>
> B-flat. That is exactly the kind of instrumentation that calls for a bass
> clarinet in A, which allows all four players to be in the same key,
> thereby
> uncomplicating the task of the composer.
>
> I suspect that Stravinskyh requested the bass clarinet in B-flat because
> he
> probably believed that either there was no such instrument or else that it
> was unlikely to find a player who owned one.
>
> Keith Bowen, who recently did a Master's dissertation on the bass clarinet
> in A, probably realizes this anomaly better than I, Yet at the same time,
> and in defense of Stravinsky, Strauss will, on occasion, have six
> clarinets
> playing in three different keys, for example 1 in D and E-flat, 2 in
> B-flat,
>
> 2 in A, and a bass in both B-flat and A.
>
> Makes life difficult for the composer and somewhat confusing for the
> players.
>
> Dan Leeson
>
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