 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-09-28 16:04
Have string quartet pieces, by Beethoven, for example, been adapted for woodwind players? The string quartet literature is so vast and beautiful that I'd love to play some of it on clarinet...
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2004-09-28 18:30
Well, I used to be in a woodwind quintet. The horn player quit, so the four of us left played lots of string quartet pieces. The only challenges were that violins have a lower range than either flute or oboe...we had to mess around a little bit with them. The bassoonist read the cello part, and I read the viola part as written. It's not terribly difficult. You just read the viola part as if it were in bass clef, but up one octave, and add your sharps to the sig.
Now I play string quartet stuff with a violinist and an accordionist. I either take the viola part or one of the violin parts. The accordionist gets cello and either 2nd violin or viola, and the violinist gets one of the violin parts. The only arranging we need to do is to write out the accordion part so she's not having to look at 2 different sheets of music at the same time...
Katrina
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Author: mkybrain
Date: 2004-09-29 01:52
u could be a criminal and transcribe them urself, but just don't tell anybody around here about it
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-09-29 02:00
mkybrain wrote:
> u could be a criminal and transcribe them urself, but just
> don't tell anybody around here about it
mkybrain, perhaps you don't really quite understand ... pieces that are a hundred years old can be transcribed all you want; it's pieces under copyright that have the problem.
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Author: mkybrain
Date: 2004-09-29 02:04
lol. I sort of skipped over the whole Beethoven part. Sorry about that. However, he did not say that he wanted just Beethoven, he said the string quartet literature in general.
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2004-09-29 03:32
Learn a string instrument, then you can play it in its original form.
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-09-29 04:43
I personally don't think the Beethoven quartets work on anything but string instruments. Almost without exception they use an advanced range of techniques ... some of which are just not possible (double, triple and quadruple stopping, harmonics, and arpeggios over three or four strings). I've played plenty of them (as violist) and they're difficult to virtuosic, but well written for the strings, on the whole.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2004-09-29 06:11
I have purchased some scores to Haydn quartets with that very task in mind. The primary problem that I see is some VERY high upper-range activity in the violins, as well as some pretty intense high-speed jumps. I won't even bring up the breathing issue <g>
Allen Cole
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2004-09-29 14:51
FWIW, Mozart is do-able, as are certain "less artistic" things like Pachelbel's Canon.
If what you're looking for is "wedding music" types of things, there are scads of string quartet arrangements of baroque tunes as well as all the usual suspects (Wagner, Mendelssohn, etc.). For some reason, these seem to be better arranged than the same things for woodwind quartet/quintet.
diz, wouldn't you think that the earlier Beethoven quartets might work in certain instances? I don't have a score handy, and have never done massive studying of the first 6...
Katrina
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-09-29 15:02
Henry Brant transcribed a number of string quartets for the Dorian Wind Quintet, including, amazingly, Beethoven's Quartet # 13, Op. 130. I was at the premiere many years ago and remember that it worked reasonably well (at least with the virtuoso Dorians playing). As far as I can find, it wasn't published, but it may be available from Brant or the Dorians.
One of my clarinet books (perhaps Willaman) has a section on playing string quartets with clarinet quartet. The easiest way is to have three Bb clarinets, the first two reading the violin parts and the third reading the viola part in treble clef down an octave, plus bass clarinet reading the cello part. That forces the "violist" to leave out a major third on the bottom, so an alto clarinet would be better on the part, reading in treble clef down a third. However, that probably means that the best clarinet player will have to play alto clarinet AND the viola part. . . .
So -- make yourself the librarian, photocopy the viola part, white-out the bottom staff line and draw a new one on top so the alto player can read treble clef.
It's worth learning the transpositions and play at pitch, if only because playing down a step means the viola part is missing the bottom major third and the cello part is missing the bottom minor third. The string quartet literature is too good to miss out on. Haydn wrote reams of fabulous quartet music with fairly easy inner parts, and the first player ought to be able to transpose, or get a C clarinet.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-09-30 02:47
Katrina ... I personally don't think so. The first period quartets are more classical than his third period and only slightly less difficult to master. Quartets of his day found his music almost unplayable.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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