 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Melanie
Date: 2002-09-25 02:34
Well, after several years of trying, we are finally able to start a clarinet quartet! My question is: what are some of the better pieces written for clar. quartet. We have the possible use of 4 Bb's, Eb, A, alto, bass, and contra alto. we're all college students, 3 of 4 are music majors. Any help would be great. I know the natural advise is to talk to our teacher, but he's not very supportive of the idea. He thinks that we should be in different chamber ensembles (which we are) and not clarinet ensembles.
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Author: Lori
Date: 2002-09-25 03:30
Melanie-
There's lots of great stuff out there, but here are a few of my favorite pieces for clarinet quartet:
Uhl
Tomasi- Trois Divertissements
Waterson- Grand Quartet (in my opinion way too long but doing a movement or two can be nice)
Piazzolla- Histoire du Tango- not sure who the arranger is
The Hovhaness Divertimento is also kind of neat.
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Author: Jean
Date: 2002-09-25 03:36
Much of the quartets can be played in different configurations. i.e. 4 sopranos, or 3 sopranos and a bass, or 2 sopranos, one alto, and one bass. I find that adding a bass adds a nice bit of color and depth. I have rarely found anyone who wants to play alto.
If you want to put someone on Eb soprano on the first part you could either transpose it yourself or use a program such as Finale.
I am in the process of putting out college's clarinet groups together this week. I never know what to expect as far as ability is concerned.
Have fun,
Jean
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-09-25 03:55
If you got Finale - or similar (I use Mosaic - Mark of the Unicorn's wonderful and EASY to use page-layout package for music notation-Mac only unfortunately) and some "out of copyright" music. Bach's preludes and Fugues for keyboard are lovely when played on four clarinets (2 sops, alto and bass) - just avoid the ones in the sharp keys or your alto clarinetist will hate you.
Transposing them need not mean changing Bach's original key - you can leave | this example is a four part fugue | voice 1 (soprano) and voice 2 (alto) to the soprano clarinets (keep them as is) - transpose voice 3 (tenor) up a minor (?) sixth for the alto clarinet and voice 4 (bass) up a major ninth [and into the treble clef] for the bass clarinet.
Of the 48 preludes and fugues a lot of them are for 4 voices and some of them are for 5 voices - for these ones you might put voice 1 for the e-flat soprano clarinet and transpose the part down a minor third (?).
Hope this helps. Email me if you want any further help with these transpositions - I've been very generic and vague here.
diz, Sydney
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-09-25 03:57
If you got - my god - my grammar fell off ...
If you've got - damned recalcitrant fingers!!!
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Author: Doug McGee
Date: 2002-09-25 17:14
Melanie: I have had a clarinet quartet, three Bb sopranos,Bb bass, for seven years. Three of us are retired and one school teacher.
We rehearse three Sunday mornings a month and have a ball. Over the years I have accumulated a library in excess of 150 classical charts, 50 popular charts and twelve transcriptions of string quartets. If you want, I could snail mail you a copy of my library. Tell your teacher us old cats get a real big charge playing the Uhl Divertimento, Crusell quartets, all the way down to Ellington's Mood Indigo. Stay with three sopranos and one bass.
Regards, Doug McGee
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Author: Gary Van Cott
Date: 2002-09-25 20:06
First things first. Bruce Edwards did the transcription of the Histoire du Tango. It is based on a saxophone quartet arrangement. It is great but not easy.
Second. Why limit yourself to only one combination of instruments? In my quartet, we do everything from four sopranos, to Eb, Bb, alto and bass. Outside of a couple of things with basset horn parts we can at least attempt anything ever written for clarinet quartet. The different sonic characteristics of the various instrumentations adds variety for both the quartet and the audience.
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Author: Geoff Illing
Date: 2002-09-26 04:12
I play in couple of clarinet groups. The Clarinet and Sax society in Victoria Australia has a clarinet choir that meets once a month to play quartets. Their web site (www.clasax.org) has links to a few sources of wind music. One notable one is AWMP. This is Mark Walton who has done a lot of arrangements for woodwind groups. You can play a lot of the music on any combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, basson, sax ...
As well as playing with clasax, we also have a variable quartet at home. This consists of me (clt, Bb bass clt, tenor sax), my 18yo daughter (clt, alto sax, flute) our teacher ( clt, flute, and sometimes my bas clt), my 15 yo daughter (occasional member who plays viola), and my daughter's school friend (flute). We purchased a fair amount of the AWMP music. We ordered over the web, and they were also kind enough to send the third part transposed for the alto clef so we could use the viola.
Of the AWMP quartes, I have partiularly enjoyed playing "Bach goes to Town", a "Chattanooga CHoo Choo".
Hope you find lots of good music - and have as much fun as we do.
Geoff
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Author: diz
Date: 2002-09-26 06:58
G'day Geoff - great to see another antipodean on this illustrious BB
diz, Sydney
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Author: Melanie
Date: 2002-10-01 02:50
Thanks for all of the ideas. We are not limiting ourselves to any instrumentation. The above mentioned instruments are what we have access to. We're staying open so we can play any music we come accross.
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