Klarinet Archive - Posting 000214.txt from 2011/03

From: corvo di bassetto <rab@-----.de>
Subj: Re: [kl] Basset Horn Question
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:20:14 -0400

Hi Tom,

Sorry, of cause actually to play the clarinet is ideal. It just so happens that no great composer ever was a clarinetist, though I am rather fond of some things C. Baermann wrote, and R. Starck, I. Mueller and even Lazarus, if it was for the virtue of clarinettistic writing alone. I am a composer-clarinetist myself and I dismiss all my early writing for the clarinet as incompetent. It is getting better but still a long way to go. I still feel (after almost 30 years) I am just entering the mysterious realm of the clarinet sound. How Brahms and Mendelssohn grasped that essence without playing themselves is beyond me, but they came closer to it than anybody else I know (just an opinion though). It is like the clarinet plays itself, like a strange and rare animal singing. That cannot be achieved by consulting some fingering charts and knowing the range of an instrument or any other superficial knowledge. That is my experience. I played many an awful clarinet part by some modern, ignorant composer and have piles of opera parts that are clearly conceived for something in between a flute and a violin with occasional hues of trumpet. Sadly, all these people had and still have no use for what Mozart established as the most accomplished and even somehow transcendental wind instrument. Again, just an opinion, though based on experience and saturated with thought.

The basset horn proper has a very peculiar character in sound, quite different from any sort of regular clarinet. Hence I don't think knowing the fingerings alone suffices to write a good basset part. To me, timbre and "character" is pivotal in the invention of music. I might be accused of being some sort of fundamentalist, I am afraid.

Best wishes
danyel

Am 22.03.2011 um 21:42 schrieb Tom Bassett:

>
>
> Danyel,
>
> To my knowledge, (correct me if I'm wrong) the Bassett horn is the same fingerings as every other clarinet. Since I play clarinet I don't see how I would write incorrectly for the bassett horn. What I understood you to mean was... I would write better for clarinet if I had a friend that was a virtuoso but I wouldn't write well for it if I actually play it myself which is the case. I know there is a difference in timbre but I don't see how that could effect how well the notes lay on the instrument or how it could effect my ability to imagine how it would sound with the other clarinets. I could kind of see your point if you were talking to a brand new composition student just writing their very first pieces and did not know anything about any clarinet in which case I would say stick with what you know to start. I'm not professional but I'm not a beginner either. I guess I just dont quite understand your thinking on this subject.
>
> Tom
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