 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2011-02-09 17:31
If this topic has been discussed previously, send me the link.
This particular season, I'm playing in two organizations and am re-visiting some band literature where the fingerings are going to require more practice than usual on my part.
In your experience, what has been the toughest (or some of the toughest) passages in band music to tackle, in terms of fingering?
Two that come to my mind right away are "Tulsa" (the fiddle-sounding passage) and "Armenian Dances."
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Author: davyd
Date: 2011-02-09 18:57
It might be useful to draw a distinction between transcriptions (from orchestra or otherwise), and pieces written originally for band. Too many examples of the former come to mind.
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2011-02-09 19:10
TRUE! So, let's not include orchestral transcriptions. I agree, too many examples therein.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2011-02-09 19:13
Agree as above.
Most of those orchestral transcription, often made 100+ years ago (and probably played then mostly on Albert System clarinets!!) are fiercely difficult if played anywhere near the marked tempi.
Not to mention the stamina reqired. Just doing William Tell Overture and in last 3 pages there are just 2 beats rest plus 1 silent bar..
What is needed is a clarinet with four strings and a bow.
Just try Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique or The Sourcerers Apprentice for starters
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Author: grifffinity
Date: 2011-02-09 19:13
Most orchestral transcriptions are insanely difficult for clarinets because we usually have all of the violin parts (which = awkward key signatures, crazy fast articulations, and little room to breathe). I personally love them...especially the old transcriptions from the 50's and 60's (I'm going by publisher dates...probably transcribed years early?) - Poet and Peasant, La Forza del Destino...all those great overtures. I find some of the newer transcriptions a little dumbed down...and shorter. I recently played a Bach transcription that was just yawn...
Music composed for symphonic band, especially recent music, I find brass heavy with the wind parts having little importance or interest. Off the top of my head Alfred Reed's music has some of the more difficult wind writing. His Wind Symphony No. 4 - which I played under his baton in 1995, had some tricky parts that I recall. Personally, anything that has James Swearingen's name on it gives me hives....
Other difficult band stuff - usually marches...Sempre Fidelis is an annoying one that requires A6 of the 1st and second clarinets. More difficult if they give you those old marching band copies that are the size of a postage stamp.
Post Edited (2011-02-09 19:15)
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Author: clarin-ed
Date: 2011-02-09 19:47
I don't know if I could choose a single toughest band piece, but here is some hard stuff that comes to mind:
Grainger: Linconshire Posy (brisk young sailor)
Grainger: Molly on the Shore (if taken very fast)
Folk Dances: Shostakovich (though I can't remember if that is a transcription or not)
Graham: Harrison's Dream
Some Holsinger stuff like To Tame Perilous Skies (but those runs are pretty much inaudible when the brass is playing)
The clarinet solo in Husa's Music for Prague
Sullivan/Mackerras: Pineapple Poll (though I think it may be an arrangement.) It's worth looking at, though.
If you have or have access to smartmusic, I find that it has a great selection of concert band music.
Yeah, there are a ton of hard orchestra transcriptions.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2011-02-09 19:47
"Band" Literature is, compared to classic transcriptions, rather simple. Not necessary for sight reading, but in terms of getting it in your fingers reasonably fast.
However, there's an exception, when the original score was for brass, and has been "expanded" to woodwinds. Certain licks may be manageable for a trumpeteer (trumpetist?) but can be hell for a clarinetist. Not because of the tempo, but because of certain very very awkward fingerings required.
--
Ben
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2011-02-09 19:51
My aging eyes don't read the postage-stamp marches very well...so I turn them sideways on my copier and enlarge them as big as I can.
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2011-02-09 19:58
"Pineapple Poll"? I seem to remember that the second part was harder than the first part, simply because, being one octave lower, the sixteenths went over the register break.
Gotta also love the contemporary works written by composers who play a brass instrument. I played one (can't remember the name of the piece) where the composer put in runs with skips that, to him, sounded great. The runs were next to impossible to play because of the awkward fingerings required. I'm sure, however, if I composed something for a string player, I'd probably drive them crazy!
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2011-02-09 23:07
Sousa's Fugue on Yankee Doodle.
Transcription - Hymn to the Fallen. Violin filigree backdropping the brass chorale, which our conductor takes quite faster than in the movie. Lots of leaps involving altissimo.
Same conductor - a good brass man - also found a piccolo part for Sousa's Stars and Stripes handwritten out for clarinet, for when no flutes are had. Hands it to me late last season, saying "you can play high notes, right?" "Uh, in theory . . ." We didn't have to use it then, but if this summer's season is like last, we'll have occasions to commit this sacrilege (:0) The final solo is unmistakeably bird-like; does anyone here know which bird (if any) Sousa intended to depict?
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Author: mrn
Date: 2011-02-09 23:13
Sinfonietta by Ingolf Dahl has a tricky "cadenza" section played in unison by the 1st clarinets.
Post Edited (2011-02-09 23:14)
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2011-02-09 23:17
Hemispheres by Joseph Turrin is perhaps the hardest wind ensemble piece I have ever played. Dionysiaques by Florent Schmitt is both hell for technique and articulation. The wind pieces by Messiaen. Dahl Sinfonietta. Many of the Maslanka works have difficult sections.
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-02-10 00:11
Forgot the name of the composer. He conducted a piece at Interlochen. It was called something like 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The players would hold up their horns and simply play nothing! The composer felt that the music was any sound or no sound at all. I'm still wondering what drugs or mushrooms he took! I have to say it was interesting and no one really knew if they should clap or boooo!
Needless to say, this wasn't the hardest piece, but the OP's question for some reason reminded me of this!
I think the composer was John Cage.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
Post Edited (2011-02-10 00:47)
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2011-02-10 00:20
Brandon and mrn read my mind exactly! Those were the two pieces I was going to mention. In fact, Dahl's Sinfonietta has a cadenza section played in unison by the ENTIRE clarinet section, not just the 1st clarinets.
Turrin's music is absolutely awesome. Very difficult, but if you read what Turrin had in mind when he wrote Hemispheres it starts to make sense on how hard the piece is and what it sounds like.
Just for simply technical passages, can't forget Nelson's Rocky Point Holiday. Also the solo part in Hammersmith has some of the hardest articulations out there (imho). Gillingham's Apocalyptic Dreams is a challenge (along with a lot of his music).
But a lot of these pieces are hard because of runs or arpeggios in awkward keys or modes, not really because of technically AND musically challenging passages. That's a much harder class to categorize.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2011-02-10 01:05
clarin-ed has got most of my list -- Grainger, Holsinger, currently struggling with Shostakovich Folk Dances, which is just short of do-able because of the extraordinarily bad lie of the fingerings on the fast passage work.
"To Tame the Perilous Skies" is at the top of my list of all-time thankless pieces. Noise, noise, noise, and then some more noise. Screaming, yelling, banging, crashing movie sound effects. But music? Not so much.
Has anyone done a thing called "Spin Cycle," by Scott Lindroth? It's not awful, in my estimation, but it is also pretty pointless.
On the other hand, there are pieces like "Equus" (Eric Whitacre) and "Zion" (Dan Welcher) -- immensely difficult, but also immensely rewarding, both to play and to hear.
I am a clarinetist-turned-oboist, and I just have to say that there is a special place in the underworld reserved for composers who think an oboe is just another alternative to clarinet or flute in the sort of works we are discussing. If a passage is difficult for the clarinets, it is impossible for the oboe. ![[yeah]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley17.gif)
Susan
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Author: davyd
Date: 2011-02-10 03:51
Wikipedia sez that the root-form of "Molly on the shore" is for string quartet, so that would put it on the transcription of the ledger. I'm supposing that "Pineapple poll" started out for orchestra.
Wikipedia further sez that "Mannin Veen" started out for band. But it's every bit as rough on the clarinets, particularly the solo and 1st, as a transcription would be.
@Bob Bernardo: it sounds like you're talking about "4 minutes 33 seconds" by John Cage. If you went only 3:45, you must have skipped a repeat somewhere.
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Author: clariniano
Date: 2011-02-10 10:56
I've heard that Pines of Rome is one of the hardest band pieces for clarinet...
I also know there's one piece from a suite called The Red Poppy that is difficult because of the tempo, again the second clarinet part is more difficult than the first.
A third piece that I know is challenging, Ottawa River Suite. (don't remember the composer though)
Though I find most of the band conductors who give parts that have difficult woodwind parts, that average players find unplayable are almost always brass players themselves...
Meri
Please check out my website at: http://donmillsmusicstudio.weebly.com and my blog at: http://clariniano.wordpress.com
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2011-02-10 11:33
John Heins's Overture for Band has a three or four bar solo which is fast and extremely awkward (on the B flat clarinet, but much easier on the A). The last time we played it, I ended up transposing the entire piece on my A clarinet just because of those few measures.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2011-02-10 12:33
Das Lied Der Apostle - Wagner = nothing is faster than that one. 16th notes straight 4 beats to measure, taken in 1. Clarinet runs go on for 2-3 pages. So basically 64th notes with a beat of 80.
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra is also tough. Ruslan and Ludmilla when taken at lightning speed is also tough (US Navy Band plays it at breakneck speed).
Hindemith (anything).
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2011-02-10 12:36)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-02-10 13:22
Pineapple Poll is a collection of Gilbert & Sullivan excerpts created by Charles Mackerras. It was definitely created for orchestra. Wonderful music, especially if the conductor has as sense of humor.
Let me throw in the overture to Tannhauser, which has several pages of fast, repetitive violin noodling with no chance to take a breath or clear your head.
Ken Shaw
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2011-02-10 13:32
"...Just for simply technical passages, can't forget Nelson's Rocky Point Holiday"
I had breakfast with Ron Nelson in Phoenix some years ago; thanked him for all of the clarinet students he had (unwittingly) sent me -- kids trying to learn to cope with the considerable demands of this fine work!
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Author: Dori
Date: 2011-02-10 14:21
I played an arrangement of Phantom of the Opera which had a long, fast passage that kept crossing the break, and had accidentals all throughout, including a B#. Of course this line was only in the 1st Clarinet, and I was the only 1st so I had nowhere to leave out a note.
It was one of those times it would have helped to have an extra pinkie finger. Too bad we can't borrow one from a brass player. They don't even use their pinkies.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2011-02-10 14:28
Agreed about Rocky Point Holiday as well as the comment that some things that lie over the break on 2nd clarinet are very difficult. There are some sections of Gould's American Salute that easily qualify on this list.
There is also a section in the band arrangement of Elsa's Procession that is in many, many flats and lays at the top of the clarinet; As I recall, most of the section is engaged on this one. I think that phrase was on one of the service band's clarinet audition list recently. Another one of those that's a transcription that an A clarinet might make a little handier. To think through almost consecutive high Eb, Db, and Cb is a mind bender, The 1st part is divisi at time and darn hard to read to begin with for my old eyes. But there is the very lovely and extremely delicate woodwind opening and a wonderful clarinet solo phrase (pretty easy BTW).
GBK (another band clarinetist at times) and I have often talked about the need for a "difficult passage excerpt book" but the copyright issues would be monumental.
Post Edited (2011-02-10 14:41)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-02-10 15:00
Hank -
Before Daphnis & Chloe came out of copyright, there were 25th generation Xeroxes of handwritten manuscripts of the infamous noodling that circulated everywhere. You could go blind from working on even a good copy. Thank goodness it wasn't arranged for band.
Ken Shaw
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Author: clarinettefaerie
Date: 2011-02-10 23:02
I've been laughing as I read through all these testimonies to the most 'finger-boggling' pieces.
Some of these pieces I've played, and some I've watched others struggle through as I chilled out on bass clarinet...
Persichetti, Masquerade for Band (I just never got the hang of the last page of the 1st part...)
I second Nelson's Rocky Point Holiday! I played bass on that, but I felt sorry for the poor soprano clarinetists up front...
Speaking of Nelson... Passacaglia. YUCK.
Phillip Spark's Dance Movements. Even on bass, parts of it were very challenging. I would have pulled my hair out playing it on soprano clarinet.
ISU's symphonic winds did a GEMS concert for the CBDNA North Central Conference last February... We did Roussel's A Glorious Day. Check out the first part... As my band director said, "A Glorious Day, my a**."
And finally, Maslanka's symphonies in general are often killer... but so good when you get the hang of it. Meh...
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2011-02-11 03:13
I went looking through some old documents and found a few more for this list:
Winds of Nagual (Colgrass) - some parts are ridiculously difficult, as I recall, and a very hard piece to get together as a band
Any of Mike Djupstrom's works are pretty tough. If you've never heard of him, he hasn't written a ton for band, but what he has written is pretty rewarding to perform.
I recall Robert Jager's symphonies having some pretty tough licks but I can't remember clearly. Haven't played these in years.
I think it's one many of us were thinking only for the solo part (which isn't too difficult but has some tricky parts), Makris' Aegean Festival Overture.
Second any of Maslanka's symphonies, or largely, his entire band catalog.
The last movement of Suite Francaise (Milhaud) when played at breakneck speed can be really quite tough.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2011-02-11 11:49
Hi Beth,
I have also "chilled out" on bass clarinet and watched the 1st experience all sorts of agony. Actually, some BC parts are pretty neat as long as there in no over-doubling in the sax, bassoon, or euphonium sections. I really hate that kind of piece.
But you know, I have gotten much more serious about playing bass clarinet as many of the show gigs I do has a Reed IV book with some nice stuff. I was looking over your bio and you need to get a little saxophone in your life! Perfect for a music ed career.
HRL
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2011-02-11 18:26
Last season we played a paso doble by Jose Franco called Aguero. The Eb part gave me fits. It's all over the altissimo break and requres a lot of oddball fingerings, at least it did for me to get it halfway smooth. You can hear how we did at http://charlestoncommunityband.com/ in the audio files section.
Post Edited (2011-02-11 18:27)
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Author: JayC
Date: 2011-02-11 23:41
My group is playing Southern Harmony by Donald Grantham. I gotta admit, while we were sight reading it I felt a dull sense of panic; some of the notes just wizzed by. In the last movement, there's a section of staccato triplets (tempo is marked Vivace) in 6 sharps with a handful of accidentals. And, of course, it's marked piano.
I had a focused practice session the next night at home and it took about 20 or 30 minutes to get all the difficult runs down. Now when we run through it, I can't help but think, "Why was I so nervous about this?".
A couple years ago, we played Prelude and Dance by Paul Creston. There were a couple of seriously ridiculous runs it that one!
Agreed about Rocky Point Holiday. Lots of fun!
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Author: SamKaestner
Date: 2011-02-13 22:08
I'd go with the last movement of Malcolm Arnold's Four Scottish Dances. The 2nd and 3rd parts are much tougher than the 1st, though it's not difficult if you play it on A clarinet.
Also, we have done a transcription of Hoe Down from Copland's Rodeo that is really nasty. It's written in E major on Bb clarinet, which makes things complicated. I usually play it on A.
Sam Kaestner
West Point Band Clarinetist
www.samkaestner.com
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Author: davyd
Date: 2011-02-14 01:02
Since Scottish Dances and Hoedown are transcriptions from orchestra, it's almost to be expected they won't lie well on clarinet. In both pieces, particularly the Arnold, I fault the arranger for not moving the piece to a more band-friendly key.
"Difficulty" is relative. I've played the Holst E-flat band suite any number of times, but the current effort is my first time on the Solo clarinet part. So I've got some work to do.
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Author: dgclarinet
Date: 2011-02-14 12:16
One piece that a group I'm in just played that had pretty intense clarinet parts was Wedding Dance by Press. If a conductor gets a little crazy with tempos at a performance, the Eb and 1st parts can just be unplayable (for me anyway).
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Author: Katfish
Date: 2011-02-14 13:48
Has anyone played La Pequena Habana by Todd Malicoate? All the clarinetparts are difficult. Six sharps at 132 sixteenth notes. Unusual style too. Sort of Tito Puentes meets Steve Reich.
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Author: bethmhil
Date: 2011-10-02 04:36
Haven't replied to this in a while, but I have to add... Grantham's Bum's Rush. URGH. Not just ridiculous technical passages, but playing pianississississimo up in the stratosphere kills.
BMH
Illinois State University, BME and BM Performance
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Author: epssax
Date: 2011-10-02 12:07
Through my years of teaching and playing I found Robert Russell Bennett's arrangements to be laced with clarinet difficulties. One particular piece was his Excerpts from My Fair Lady. About 3/4 through the thing the flutes and clarinets have about 32 bars of tricky fingerings, lots of flats, delicate articulation and subtle expression markings. I direct a shriners band and we grind to a screeching halt when we come to that section. I notice in the score that the directors wrote in the score to cut that section out.
Been playing clarinet 53 years. Studied with Jim Elliott and James Livingston in Louisville. Been a professional musician 51 years. Play a Buffet R-13. Also play a Buffet tenor sax, Martin Baritone sax, Jupiter also sax. www.thecountryclarinet.com
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2011-10-02 12:57
Toward the end of Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser, the violins have two pages of 16th (or maybe 32nds) slurred 2-and-2 at high speed. In the band transcription, they're given to the 1st clarinet section -- two pages without a break or rest. Your eyes glaze over from the repetitions, your embouchure muscles cramp up, along with your tongue, and your lungs are ready to burst. If you stop for a breath, you instantly lose your place among the identical measures. (Robert Williman told this story in his wonderful book The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing, which is alas long out of print and goes for $50 on the used market.)
Ken Shaw
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2011-10-02 14:14
The Instrumentalist magazine has new music reviews with difficulty grading 1 through 6. Results are listed in editions of Band Music Guide. (Maybe my age is showing)
richard smith
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Author: Wes
Date: 2011-10-02 23:26
The last part of "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" has some hard to read clarinet parts, partly because they are printed small.
A band I play in does "Pineapple Poll" on occasion. Again, the print size is a little small for comfort. Thus, it is good to go over it the night before playing it in rehearsal or concert.
Leroy Anderson's pieces are generally not easy, but are popular even today.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2011-10-02 23:53
I just played the Pines of the Apian Way last month and the final section with the trills way up there was a real challenge (fortunately, the high dynamics levels covered up any flubs). The tremolos were interesting, too.
We had a very fine English Horn player though. The low reeds were very strong as well so the opening sections were really great.
Orchestra transcriptions are usually tough.
HRL
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Author: davyd
Date: 2011-10-03 16:07
I'm grappling with the 1st part for "Night on bald mountain" (arr. Schaefer) and am seriously thinking about rewriting parts of it for the A instrument.
One drawback to this approach: the accusations of "Cheater!" that I know I'll get. Why does it have to be that way? I wish I knew.
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Author: marcia
Date: 2011-10-03 17:11
>One drawback to this approach: the accusations of "Cheater!" that I know >I'll get.
I have been an amateur orchestral player for many years. My thinking has always been, if I can do it better on the "other" instrument, then I will do so, and have done so several times. It has been debated here at length whether or not the composer really cares which instrument is used. At the risk of being presumptuous, I would think playing it well on the "wrong" instrument would be of more importance than sticking to the "correct" instrument and playing it less well.
So davyd, I'd say go for the "A" and enjoy being able to play it well.
Just my (not so) humble opinion. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
ducking for cover
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