 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2005-11-07 19:31
Just returned from a lesson on Bass Clarinet.
When reading through some very interesting 'orchestral excerpts' (Drapkin) we ofcourse came in the Mahler / Rachmaninov part and there it is : the Bass in A.
We had a discussion if those instruments really existed, and if in that period the bass player actually had 2 instruments during the concert (just as we now do with the soprano). Or at least that this was the intention of the composer to use really 2 instruments.
Or was it only written this way to make life easier for the composer ?
Today it's clear we transpose, but anyone any idea what the real background was for this ?
I noticed that Mahler only started doing this in Symphony n°4 (1 and 2 only Bb bass) and didn't do it in n° 9. Maybe the orchestra he wrote these works for had 2 bass players ?
Post Edited (2005-11-07 19:32)
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2005-11-07 20:41
"Today it's clear we transpose, but anyone any idea what the real background was for this ?"
Check with Dennis Smylie here in NYC. He owns a very good Bass Clarinet in A, which he has performed on quite often.
His email address is:
<dsmylie@mymailstation.com>
Good luck,
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
Post Edited (2005-11-07 20:43)
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Author: graham
Date: 2005-11-08 08:02
In Mahler 6th he uses A bass clarinet to get the extra semitone (presumably before the B flat bass routinely came with a low e flat), and does this frequently when the clarinets remain in B flat (he also uses A bass when the clarinets go into A even though he does not need the lower note). This suggests either that the A was readily available in Vienna etc. or he jumped to conclusions that no-one had the guts to tell him were wrong. My guess is that the A must have existed.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-08 08:46
John, do you mean Smylie's Buffet bass from the 30s (or is it 20s?) that goes down to low written Bb, with the longer bell? I thought that was a Bb bass, so maybe it is a different one?
In the bass clarinet convention I remember we were ready to start the big choir but there was a delay, no one knew why we are not starting. Suddenly Henri Bok came and said we are about to start, just as soon as Benny Maupin comes back with his A bass clarinet!
So to answer one of your questions, yes, they exist/ed. I didn't get a really good look at it, but it looked the same as a Bb bass clarinet. I don't know about your other questions, but I'm guessing that he knew which orchestra would play his music so he wrote it for the instruments the orchestra had - but this is just a guess.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-11-08 09:31
Mahler often wrote low notes that instruments did not routinely have. A marvellous example is in Das Lied von der Erde, where he writes a written low Bb, sounding Eb, for the cor. He remarks: "If the instrument has no Bb, play Bnatural". Which is what invariably happens, since cors, unlike oboes, are built to stop at Bnatural. I imagine that, if a player did have an instrument with Bb, the conductor would tell him not to use it, since the audience would think it was a mistake.
-----------
If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: DrGrip
Date: 2005-11-08 10:19
I have seen the part for bass in A in several scores... Ravel's scoring of Pictures at an Exhibition being one of them.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-11-08 10:24
You might even find a Selmer A bass clarinet (only to low Eb) for sale - and for a ridiculously low price. There are plenty of them around - I've seen them in the UK for as little as £750.
David,
I did Mahler 6 recently, and the cor part went to low Bb in that as well, but there was a B natural in the same movement (the slow movement which could be the 2nd or 3rd depending in the order the cnductor chooses) - a cheaper alternative to a low Bb barrel is a rolled up piece of paper (or a £20 note) to fill the hollow of the bell. Only problem on my cor is there's a bell vent, so the roll of paper has to go in far to close the vent off.
I will get round to making a barrel with a key, so turning it to connect with the low B key tail will give a Bb without all the extra keywork - and disengaged by turning the barrel slightly for a B natural. Look for a picture of a standard Marigaux 930 cor and all will be clearer - there's a link from the low B key to the bell vent which can be used.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2005-11-08 11:08)
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Author: buedsma
Date: 2005-11-08 10:31
Belgianclarinet ,
where do you follow lessons for bassclarinet ?
Another belgian pmlayer :-)
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Author: javier garcia m
Date: 2005-11-08 11:09
David, I also saw low notes in Mahler 1st for trumpet. Assuming trumpets go down till F#, there are low F (3rd movement) and low Eb (4th, I guess). I wondered how the players play these notes (using the tuning slide for low F? but for low Eb?) Stravinsky also use low notes for trumpets in The Rite of the Spring (at the end of the partition, before the final section; I don't have here the score). There is a solo for three trumpets, two soprano in C and one bass in Eb that play the same melody in three octaves. The bass trumpet goes down to low Eb!!
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2005-11-08 11:43
David- be careful when using the term "cor" when you are referring to cor anglais. Cor means "horn" in French, so a French reader would understand "French horn" if you talk about "cor"! You probably already know that, but perhaps you don't realise that "cor" is not an internationally recognised abbreviation for cor anglais, even in other English speaking countries.
Now, what about "cor blimey"??!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-11-08 12:30
'Cor blimey' comes from the expression 'May God blind me' (or similar) - having lost some of the diction along the way.
I don't know where 'Gordon Bennett' comes from though.
Now, back on topic so this doesn't get wiped, do check with some Selmer dealers, you never know - they might have an A bass clarinet that's been languishing in their stock room for the last 15-20 years and at a bargain price. Vincent Bach had one (an '80s 'D' series) back in 1989 for £750.
Now, does anyone make double cases for a low C bass and an A (to low Eb) bass? The latter will fit into an alto sax sized case.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2005-11-08 12:55)
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2005-11-08 12:53
Yes, they exist and were probably more available around the turn of the 19th/20th century. No, in modern times they are not common. (Selmer has apparently made about 5 since around 1950.) See:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=83930&t=83864
The only one I've seen pictures of, besides Dan Leeson's custom-made, were Albert or Simple system. In addition to composers mentioned above (and some others who don't immediately come to mind, Bartok, Dvorak, Rachmaninoff, and Rimsky-Korsakov all wrote for the instrument.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: DressedToKill
Date: 2005-11-08 14:23
Not to continue the off-topic straying, but all major English horn manufacturers offer a low Bb option, and Patricola makes all of their oboes d'amore and English horns with a low Bb as standard keywork.
Who wants to petition Selmer to build a CONTRAbass in A? :-)
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-11-08 14:49
I've played on Selmer A Boehm system bass clarinets back in the 1980's, so at least two different ones existed during that period. The fact that they were listed for sale may have some bearing on the "reality" of their current existence.
They existed in "the good old days" as well. My grandfather possessed a wonderful Buffet A bass (to low E only) in the Albert system. (It was probably made in the period 1895 to 1910, per Grandpa; I don't have the horn or a serial number or anything more than a photo of me behind a music stand with the horn across my lap: a visual record of young Terry turning to the dark side of clarinet playing at a very early age.) I played on it as a young sprout (some people did have a use for that "funny" fingering chart in the Rubank method, you know), and was thus introduced to transposition and manual double register keys at a tender age.
One piece that cries out for an A bass is "On The Trail" by Grofe. That long descending passage that occurs three or four times (one of which is slightly different) is, when played on an A bass, like water off a duck's back. No fumbles (it's in C major when done that way), no sliding. Try it the next time you encounter an A horn at an ICS event.
The low Eb on the Bb horn was added to enable the garden variety bass clarinet to play the A parts which (as was mentioned above) have been around since the 1800's. For the most part, the horn was written for as a parallel scoring issue (when the sopranos are in A, the bass is placed in A). I have never seen a bass part in C, but then again I've never danced the Cotton Eyed Joe, so my experience in many things is somewhat limited. Who knows what Rossinni did in his spare time?
(The "original" bass clarinet was apparently pitched in C, if Randall is to be believed. Sort of like a big alto clarinet, I would think...)
Aside from the Germans' unhappy habit of writing parts for the bass in A using German notation (setting them in bass clef), dealing with A parts is no worse than dealing with any other transposition. Anyone dealing in classical/art music performance needs to get this transposition down, because sooner or later it will loom up in front of you.
War story:
In the past, I had played bass for a number of community groups here in Houston, and usually the amount of rehearsal that I had was small, if not non-existent. They would schedule their rehearsals so as not to have the English horn gal, the contra bassoon guy and the sax and bass clarinet folks there for any longer than necessary. And, in most cases, the parts could be played with one hand tied behind the back and a gag in one's mouth. Finally, in some cases there just wasn't the time to make a rehearsal first.
One of these instances for me involved a couple of standards (Gershwin) plus one Mitteleuropan composer's tone poem piece. I had done the Gershwin stuff so often that it was literally like falling off of a log, and the section leader told me that the tone poem was like a ninth grade concert band part. No problems there; I'd eyeball the part when I got to the concert hall and all would be well.
I literally arrived at the hall as the downbeat for the earlier works (in which I was not playing) was happening, so I occupied my time backstage revisiting the Gershwin stuff (which was exposed, solo style playing on sax and bass clarinet). I glanced at the other piece and noted that it was nothing more than half and quarter notes, as it had been described, simple.
Comes time to go out, I haul my horns along and rip through the Gershwin in normal style. (American in Paris was one of them; love those bass clarinet riffs where everyone else shuts down and it's just you and a funny looking horn, milking a phrase for all that it's worth. That George sure knew how to treat the bass clarinet...)
Then came the tone poem. I slogged along, playing the quavers as they cropped up on the page, wondering what was for dinner or something similar the whole while. The part was printed two sided, so I get to the bottom with a four or six bar rest for the page turn, flip the part over, and only then see the words "To Bass Clarinet in A" at the top, on the curled over part where the music had been thumbed for many years.
Well, the music was simple, so I made it through the short portion in A (one or two phrases, no more) without difficulty. (It did descend to the low Eb (written E for the bass in A, so there was some reason for the change.) However, the shock I experienced upon turning the page over caused me to add "read all of the printing on music as well as scan the notes" to my sight reading procedure.
Parts in A are relatively rare (maybe one in a hundred overall), and mostly concentrated in the Romantic period. However, they were still being written in the Twentieth Century, so you never know.
Second war story:
I did a piece by Chandler six or seven years ago, titled "Jubilee" (I think) that was a strange mishmash of musical styles. It was written for Bass Clarinet in A, with Italianesque notations on the part, but set in bass clef (the German style). In this case once again, the bass clarinet was in A for no other reason than to be in parallel with the clarinets who were in A in that particular movement. (The other movements (two, I think), which were not performed, were in Bb.) The part for "Jubilee" did not descend to the low E on the A horn (which would be the low Eb on the Bb bass.
This set of issues aside, the music was pretty good, in an early 1900's sort of way. In any event, it was a whole pile of bother for no real reason other than a composer who apparently never read all of his orchestration book. I found the notations in pencil on the part to be an interesting read; several had questioned the parentage of the composer in no uncertain terms...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-08 15:09
Liquorice wrote:
"David- be careful when using the term "cor" when you are referring to cor anglais. Cor means "horn" in French, so a French reader would understand "French horn" if you talk about "cor"!"
and there are people like me, who don't even know what cor means at all.
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Author: DressedToKill
Date: 2005-11-08 16:45
Congrats, Chris. Lovely instrument, isn't it? I have the cocobolo d'amore with gold keys. (Glitter and be gay, I always say!) Howarth makes some LOVELY instruments. I rather like their clarinets as well, although I *do* wish they'd make a bass....perhaps in A? ;-)
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Author: BelgianClarinet
Date: 2005-11-08 21:31
Buedsma (and those interested)
I've started Bass clarinet lessons last year at the Muziek Academie in Hemiksem.
for those unfamiliar with our schools : this is a typical Belgian Public Music school system, where it is possible for not too much money ( < 60 €/year (kids) or < 200€/year (adults) ) to get quite some lessons from professional musicians after 'standard school hours' (typical 17h -> 22h, evening courses)
When you're young (and you can start at age 9) this can be a ± 10 year preparation before starting the 'master of music course' at a Conservatory to become a professional musician (if you're good enough), or else you can do it just to learn music and achieve a quite nice non-pro level : it just depends how much 'talent' you have, and how much time you invest :-).
Adults can follow a shorter program to learn music just for fun.
I'ven been hanging around in several 'Academies' for many years (age 10 till 30 !!!) learning Bb clarinet and later doing all kinds of additional chamber music classes etc. So I could achieve (now trying to be realistic) a quite nice level for a non-pro.
Then is has been quiet for about 10 year (only playing in a wind band : "harmonie"), but last year (at age 41) a bought myself a Prestige Bass (old dream -> midlife crises, but less dangerous than a bike !!) and entered the school again as an adult, to learn it the proper way.
One of my better decisions !! Amazing how much one can learn with a good teacher/coach.
So today I'm having lots of fun on Bb (playing in more orchestra's than ever : wind band, symphony, quintet,..) and Bass : trying to make the most out of it, including these funny excerps in A and bass clef !!.
I'll probably never play it for 'real' because Mahler/Ravel/ .. is too difficult for the amatuer Symphonic Orchestra I play (Bb and Bass), but ... ah, it's interesting, fun and ... I think most of you will understand what I mean ;-)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-11-08 22:51
For anyone working in an opera orchestra it's essential to transpose into A bass. Wagner and Verdi use it a lot. Big chunks of "Tosca", wich is the only complete opera by Verdi I've played is written for A bass and this I learned the hard way many years ago by not noticing it before the first rehersal.
For Wagner you have to do it in bass clef. For those who don't already know, the soprano clef for bass clarinet in German notation like in Wagner has to be played one octave higher than usual.
Alphie
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-11-09 05:01
this weeks lovely pile of music involves the Miraculous Mandarin by Bartok- i'm on "3rd and Bass". The bass clarinet part was originally for an A Bass, but on my part has been transposed. There do seem to be quite a few low E flats in it! This supports the suggestion above that the A bass was needed when most Bflat basses lacked the low E key (or notes down to C).
keep playing the good tunes
donald
(Years later i read this again and see a mistake- i meant "Basses lacked the low E FLAT key")
Post Edited (2009-09-09 11:22)
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Author: graham
Date: 2005-11-09 07:41
Well, many composers have written off the scale for instruments, but that is one remove entirely from asking a player to use a different pitched instrument to avoid writing out of range, but where the instrument didn't actually exist, so the circumstantial evidence suggests wide availability of the A bass in Mahler's time. But I am not so convinced by such parts as Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance in A, which seems to me merely to match with the other clarinets in A. My guess is that Elgar may have simply been unaware that this presented the player with a problem. At least nobody has suggested that the composer wanted to use the mellower tone colour of an A instrument (!); perhaps that is because few if any of us have heard one being played (and knew what we were listening to).
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-11-09 14:06
Having played both, I'd argue against the A bass having a "mellower tone quality". The last time I played a modern one (using the On The Trail passage as a demo number), I got a comment about how smoothly the LRL sequences seemed to go compared with when she played it; the listener (another bass clarinet player) actually thought I was doing the sequence on a Bb horn.
(While it's great to be able to ace the Grofe work, I still don't think that having to drag around a French case for your Bb and A bass is the way to go. For those rare (1% to 2% tops) A bass clarinet parts, go ahead and transpose, spare your back and your wallet at the same time.)
As I've gassed on about before at some length, blind listening tests with A and Bb soprano clarinets (where the listener is not able to tell which horn is being used to play which music) show that the tone of the A is close enough to the tone of the Bb as to be of negligible difference. Some people talk about this; I've actually been through such a trial, and the end results satisfied me. But that more would take the trouble (not very much, actually; just having the two horns, some parts that are transposed to put them at equal facility when being played (i.e., to eliminate any lack of facility due to a difficult transposition or by being played by a player not quite as adept at transposing), and a screen) to see for themselves.
(What WE perceive when playing the horns is another thing entirely. I attribute it to our spending most of our time on the shorter horn, and subconsciously "feeling" that a given fingering is "less shrill" on the A horn, simply because it sounds a lower pitch for the same fingering. What we "sense" from our training goes unnoticed when the listener (who is not playing but just listening) hears the end result.)
When I participated in the series of tests that examined this (back in the 1960's in Springfield MO), we only had one poor quality C clarinet to throw into the mix, so I'd not say that the theory got a fair trial across all three soprano horns. However, _none _of the clarinet players involved could differentiate between the A and Bb during the tests, and only a few could pick out the C (mostly because of mechanism noise, to be honest about the Leblanc product being used).
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2005-11-09 14:27
"John, do you mean Smylie's Buffet bass from the 30s (or is it 20s?) that goes down to low written Bb, with the longer bell? I thought that was a Bb bass, so maybe it is a different one?"
No, what I mean is that Smylie owns many Bass Clarinets. You saw his favorite Bass, which was Mazzeo's from the 1930s. He also owns a Bass Clarinet pitched in "A" which I believe only goes down to a low Eb (written).
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-11-09 21:07
The two Selmer basses dating back to the 1980's that I have played were both only with a range to low Eb. The old Buffet A bass clarinet that I played on when a wee sprout was only with a range down to low E, but that was common for bass clarinets of whatever pitch during the late 1800's - early 1900's.
And, when Sax (yeah, THAT Sax) created the modern bass clarinet in the period 1830 - 1840, it only extended down to low E, the same as a soprano clarinet. The low Eb extension (for covering A bass parts) came along much later, say 1910 or thereabouts.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: buedsma
Date: 2005-11-10 15:21
well , i'm 44 and also going from year 6 to the academy.
I'm also playing rather intens Bb, Bass and Contra. Also Sax.
And following lessons again at the academy : they lost my diploma, so i can start again in the lowest grade for another 10 years :-)
I'm also looking to buy a selmer privilege or a Buffet .
Where did you buy yours ? And which price ?
WHen you are interested in trying to do something with two clarinets , let me know . Though i'm a bit more in folk and jazz and less in classical music ( except for my bach clarinet studies now)
marc@bueds.be
Post Edited (2005-11-14 11:57)
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Author: Wes
Date: 2005-11-15 06:30
It is easy to make an extension for the English horn for the Mahler out of PVC pipe. A key is not needed for that work but you have to take the extension off during the work. A low written B will not work as the low Bb is an essential melody note. Ive made two of these extensions. Sorry about going off subject!
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-09-08 13:26
Man, I've just received a set of parts containing the following:
(... insert drum roll here ...)
- Pomp & Circumstance I for *Bass Clarinet in A*
- Radetszky March for Bb clarinet playing in E and B major
- Fantasia on British Sea Songs with the hornpipe also scored for Bb clarinet playing in B major.
I mean, really...
... what were these guys thinking?!
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-09-08 14:50
Bassie wrote:
> Man, I've just received a set of parts containing the
> following:
>
> (... insert drum roll here ...)
>
> - Pomp & Circumstance I for *Bass Clarinet in A*
>
> - Radetszky March for Bb clarinet playing in E and B major
>
> - Fantasia on British Sea Songs with the hornpipe also scored
> for Bb clarinet playing in B major.
>
> I mean, really...
>
> ... what were these guys thinking?!
I suspect that they were thinking that if they write the parts, the manufacturers will create the instruments on which to play them. After all, how difficult can it possibly be to do a short production run of C# clarinets or Eb trombones? And there must be a market somewhere for bassoons in the key of G#...
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2009-09-08 15:39
I think the "Radetzky March" was actually originally scored for A clarinet and that you've perhaps received an "aftermarket" transposed part. In any case, Luck's Music Library lists it among the works for which they provide transposed parts. If your orchestra rented the music, you may be able to get an A part from the provider. FWIW, Luck's also indicates that they have transposed parts for "Pomp and Circumstance I" so, if you got your parts from Luck's, you can probably get a Bb bass part as well.
BTW, on eBay a month or so ago, there was an old Selmer Boehm bass clarinet in C, serial number 275. It sold for around $2500.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2009-09-08 16:48
I've always been amazed that no editor has transposed the hornpipe in the Henry Wood for A clarinet - there would be plenty of time to change instruments and change back again. However, if you are moderately musical and practise C major scale in thirds, you can probably play it by ear/spatial relation (that's what I've done on several occasions).
Vanessa.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-09-09 00:39
I'm pretty sure there was a bass clarinet in A used at one time but to know if a player actually carried both instruments with them is a good question. I could only assume that most didn't even have an A bass clarinet years ago. I think most often composers simply didn't understand and when they wrote for the A clarinet they assumed they should also write the bass clarinet part in A as well. Can you imagine changing horns in Ravels La Valse, one would get tired just making the many changes. Fortunately he wrote the bass part in Daphnis and Chloe in Bb even though the clarinets are in A. Maybe someone told him they didn't own a bass in A. By the way, Mahler never wrote for two bass clarinets players in one piece. It's hard enough to keep two clarinets in tune under certain conditions, I can't imagine trying to keep two bass clarinets warm in a cold concert hall, especially when the part also called for the player to play clarinet as well. ESP
http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-09-09 04:05
Yes Jack, and in his first it's the bass clarinet player that has to switch to Eb and in the duet it's actually the top line. Go figure that one. ESP
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-09-09 07:37
When playing Mahler 1st once, on bass, the E flat player said that the norm was to reverse the parts so that the E flat got the top line in that duet. Is that usual? In my case I said it was intertesting but only on an academic level.
Stephen Trier (late of London Philharmonic Orchetsra) possessed a Selmer A bass clarinet.
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2013-03-24 07:37
Well, Stephen Fox offers A basses on a custom basis. He even states that an A bass clarinet to Low C(concert A1) is concievable. If anyone gets such a horn and takes it to the orchestra... the bassoonist gets owned.
But wait, can any of us afford it?
Josh
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