 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lisa
Date: 2008-02-03 19:08
I've played second part on Holst's Second Suite in F for years -- and while there are a lot of similarities between the parts, those pesky differences kept me on my toes when sighreading through it at last week's rehearsal. There were only 3 people in our (large) community band who had never played the piece before, so it was nice to hear it done well during the initial readthrough in its entirety!
I have a couple of specific questions about the first clarinet part, which is separate from solo clarinet:
1. In the 3rd movement, "Song of the Blacksmith", I'm seeing 4 1/2 beats in the 5th measure after B -- what's up with that? Should the rhythm be the same as it is at rehearsal letter A?
2. When our first chair player played the solo near the beginning of the last movement, the guy next to me tapped me on the leg as if I should've been playing along with her. (Between the 5 of us in the front row, we had 2 playing solo and 3 of us on first.) Both solo and first parts have "one player only" marked, and I've ALWAYS heard it played as a solo. Is it really supposed to be a unison duet with one each of solo and first players??
As an addition to that last question, were "solo clarinet" parts written with the intent of having 4 Bb clarinet parts played by the same number of players on each part? My old clarinet teacher (deceased for several years now) once showed me his 1947 Pennsylvania all-state band photo, and he was one of ten in the solo/front row. He explained to me that there were 4 rows of 10 clarinetists each -- solo, first, second and third. Um, wouldn't that sound a bit top heavy, especially since the solo and 1st parts are either one in the same or very similar for most songs? I've always seen the first row split equally when there is a separate part for solo clarinet.
-Lisa
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Author: na1965
Date: 2008-02-03 19:49
In the edition that I have (Boosey & Co.) in the 3rd movement the 4th measure after B is in 3/4 with 2 1/2 beats of rest followed by a dotted sixteenth rhythm. The 5th measure after B is in 4/4 and the rhythm is the same as it is at rehearsal letter A. In the 4th movement we have always observed the one player only notation, with the remainder joining in at rehearsal letter A, which is marked Tutti in my edition.
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Author: Tom Kmiecik
Date: 2008-02-20 18:46
I actually had the same question not too long ago about the solo/1st question, so I did a little bit of research in some older band arranging and orchestration books. Specifically, "Military Band Arranging" by W.C. White (1924) shed some light on this for me.
It turns out that the parts were written to be done as four separate voices - solo, ripieno 1st (or "ripeano", depending on where you live), 2nd, and 3rd. If you look at a good number of older military band works, you will see that solo and 1st are usually just as different as 2nd and 3rd. The Holst Second Suite (plus a few other works I can think of where solo/1st are almost identical) might have been a situation where the solo clarinet part was added to fulfill the requirements for a standard military band instrumentation. There are still some newer concert band pieces (such as Johan deMeij's "Symphony No. 1") which utilize the solo clarinets as a part intended for more than one player, and there are even divisis and three-way divisis written in the solo parts. For the pieces where the solo clarinet part was intended to be played by multiple players, many U.S. publishers have started reprinting new editions designated as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th clarinets (and cornets) instead, just for clarification.
As for performance today, I've seen it divided up in two different ways. The version I see more frequently is that solo clarinet is played by one of the 1st clarinets, and then the remainder of the 1st clarinets play the ripieno 1st part. I have also seen it where solo clarinet is balanced equally to the rest of the section as though there are really four parts (2-solo, 2-1st, 2-2nd, and 3-3rd, for example). I suppose it would really depend on the piece as to whether you would want to do that. For a piece like the Hindemith "Symphony in B-flat" the latter setup might work well, but it would be likely to leave things top heavy in the Second Suite since solo and 1st are almost identical.
Regarding the Second Suite itself, the rhythm five measures after B is incorrect in the 1st clarinet part in the older edition. It should be the same rhythm as at letter A. In the last movement, I've always played it with just solo clarinet, but I can see where the question would arise (and I've heard recordings which use two clarinets as well). In the new editions, the solo and 1st clarinet parts are on one staff in the score which says "one player only", so I assume that means that they are clarifying it should only be one clarinet, not one solo and one 1st (even though I'm not really sure why they would write the solo in the 1st part anyway, then).
Sorry about the novel, and I hope that this helped!
Tom Kmiecik
Artist Relations, D'Addario Woodwinds
tkmiecik@daddario.com
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2008-02-20 18:56
Yes, 10 clarinets on each would make it sound grossly top-heavy. When you have 40 clarinets, though, I imagine balance isn't really a priority for your ensemble.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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