 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kenabbott
Date: 2006-11-26 12:03
I'm thinking of having one of my clarinets made into a basset. Has anyone done this? Is it preferable with an A clarinet, a Bb, or maybe a FB?
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2006-11-26 12:15
My basset is a selmer that was extended years ago by Brian Ackerman. If your gonna perform the Mozart Concerto and Quintet then I would recomend it.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2006-11-26 12:30
I owned (and all too quickly, sold) an older Buffet that had been "bassetized" by Stephen Fox. The feel of the instrument was VERY solid, and the belly pad he supplied was essential to comfortable playing.
I'm not sure which weighed more - the wooden extension or all the necessary keywork. It sounded fantastic - particularly when alternate fingering was used on the longest notes.
They're undeniably cool, sound wild on the lowest tones (like a well mannered trombone) but are too heavy for my daily play sessions.
PS - The modern version from leBlanc is nearly $6000 USD now, so a conversion is cost effective.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-11-26 12:37
You can get a replacement lower joint from Howarth in London, custom made for your instrument. This seems a less risky choice than a conversion job in which the existing lower joint is modified. However the cost is higher than a new Howarth instrument.
There is a very small amount of music for Basset in A. For Basset in Bb, less still. It is very questionable whether it is more authentic to play the Mozart works on a modern basset than on a modern A clarinet. If you care about authenticity, both are wrong.
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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: cigleris
Date: 2006-11-26 14:16
David, all the evidence is there that Mozart's clarinet works were written with the basset clarinet in mind. Iis documented that Sadler worked with Lotz on the Basset Horn design and extension of the low notes. In turn he decided to try it on the clarinet, the Riga programme shows his instrument. Sussmayer even started a concerto for Stadler and the basset clarinet. We will never know what Mozart actually wrote as the scores are lost for the concerto and quintet. Untill they turn up, if they ever will, we can rely on musicalogical study and research as well as score analasis.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-11-26 14:18
David Peacham wrote:
>> It is very questionable whether it is more authentic to play the Mozart works on a modern basset than on a modern A clarinet.>>
Well, one of them enables you to play the low notes that Mozart wrote, the other doesn't.
I seem to remember an episode of 'Sesame Street' where the meaning of the word 'more' -- and its opposite, 'less' -- was explained. Perhaps I should dig it out.
Tony
Post Edited (2006-11-26 14:29)
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Author: larryb
Date: 2006-11-26 17:18
Ken,
Guy Chadash will make a lower joint basset extension to fit your horn. I think he generally works with Buffets, but you might want to give him a call or pay a visit to find out what he does and charges. His shop is located on West 40th (or 41st Street), just west of the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
I think you'd be better off with an A, given it's use by Mozart as described above. You can always transpose for whatever Bb use there is ("Parto, parto"?).
Larry
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-11-27 09:46
Peter, Tony - I understand absolutely that there is compelling evidence that Mozart wrote certain works for basset clarinet.
The point I was making - and as professionals you may of course choose to dismiss my view - is that there is little gain in authenticity in playing these works on a MODERN basset as opposed to a MODERN non-basset instrument. To my amateur ears, the difference in tone quality between modern and classical instruments - which affects every note the soloist plays - far outweighs the octave transposition of a few bars.
I would argue that:
most authentic: classical basset
2nd most authentic: classical non-basset
3rd most authentic: modern basset
least authentic: modern non-basset.
So yes, I agree that a modern basset is (fractionally) more authentic than a modern non-basset, contrary to what I wrote. But the point I was making is that I think modern bassets are a waste of money: the gain is not worth the candle.
But I'm just an ignorant member of the audience.
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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: clarnibass
Date: 2006-11-27 10:46
It depends completely on what music you play, and what is comfortable to you.
The first thing to consider is how comfortable are you with playing a heavier clarinet all the time? I know I wouldn't want that, so buying a new basset lower joint (or having one made for you) or a new basset clarinet would be a better option.
Then you need to decide if you want a basset Bb or A. Again it depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to play those classical pieces and you care about those lower notes, then basset A is probably better. I personally would go for a basset Bb, because I don't have an A, and it would just give me a few extra notes for improvisations. Two completely differnet situations and you need to decide what will be best for your situation.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-11-27 12:05
>>The first thing to consider is how comfortable are you with playing a heavier clarinet all the time?>>
Wouldn't a neck strap take care of that problem? I don't think I'd be comfortable supporting my Eb alto clarinet on my thumb, but I don't even notice the extra weight with a strap.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: kenabbott
Date: 2006-11-27 15:07
I regularly play bass acn contrabass clarinets and bariton and bass saxes. The weight issue is immaterial to me.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-11-27 17:11
The real question is what you feel up to doing and what you can afford.
There's nothing immoral about playing the Mozart Concerto on a modern, un-extended A clarinet. All the great players have done it and continue to do it. (I would draw the line, though, at playing it with piano on a Bb instrument.)
If you can afford a C extension or an extra extended lower joint, by all means get one. There are many passages, particularly in the Concerto's slow movement, that no longer sound right to me after hearing them with the low notes. However, add-on extensions are problematic. All the ones I've heard have an abrupt change of tone quality from "clarinet" to "bass clarinet" on low E, and also have intonation problems. The only modern basset clarinet I've liked is Sabine Meyer's Wurlitzer, and she could make a kazoo sound great.
I don't think an un-extended period instrument copy would work for the Concerto or Quintet, though it would certainly be useful for period orchestra work. If you want to play the Concerto more or less as Mozart conceived it and his audiences heard it, you need a low-C copy in the Riga poster style.
Of course that doesn't end the investigation. Jean Claude Vielhan, Eric Hoeprich and Steve Fox sound completely different from each other on their Riga-style instruments, and there's no way from looking at the poster which of their instruments is most like Stadler's original, or even if they're like it at all. Not to mention that the poster shows the reed on top, which no one except Nina Stern seems up to.
Finally, even if Stadler's instrument were to be found, complete with reed, we'd still not know what sound Mozart heard. And even if we did, we wouldn't have a room holding 200 people, with no electric background hum or ventilation whoosh. And even if we did, we couldn't purge our ears and expectations of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Boulez and rock.
There are many good ways to play the Mozart Concerto. Getting a low-C clarinet solves one big problem, but it's a pot of money for something you won't use very often.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2006-11-28 12:23
The compelling reason to have one of these is what it can offer, over and above, in contrast to the current Boehm clarinet designs.
These things sound very cool, particularly when you play the alternate fingerings... the best weight carrying compromise I have seen involved a floor peg and heavily padded neck strap. The floor peg rested on a resonant wooden box that vibrated in sympathy with the lowest notes.
Authentic? Probably not.
An acoustic augmentation of the sound? Definitely.
I heard the Bach Solo Cello transcriptions played this way and it was WAY cool.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2006-11-28 12:35
Ken Shaw wrote:
>>Finally, even if Stadler's instrument were to be found, complete with reed, we'd still not know what sound Mozart heard. And even if we did, we wouldn't have a room holding 200 people, with no electric background hum or ventilation whoosh. And even if we did, we couldn't purge our ears and expectations of Beethoven, Stravinsky, Boulez and rock.>>
I think very few people working in what has come to be called HIP (historically informed performance) now aspire to 'recreate what Mozart heard'. I certainly don't. (I might spell out here how I DO think of what I do sometime.)
Meanwhile, I suggest that a minimal requirement for any public performer nowadays, 'great' or not, is to play the notes that the composer wrote -- even if as in this case, we have unequivocal evidence for some of those notes, and only conjecture (though informed conjecture) for others.
It's not 'immoral' to give a defective performance of a piece by failing to play what is written because of limited personal ability, either. But it IS immoral to be complacent about the fact, or to continue to do so to a significant degree without making an effort to rectify the situation.
Tony
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2006-11-28 13:25
Tony Pay suggested: "I might spell out here how I DO think of what I do sometime"
Please do. It would be of great interest to many of us.
But I'll jump the gun and say why I think authentic (or "historically informed" if you prefer) performances are worthwhile. Just from my point of view as a member of the audience....
No, I do not necessarily want to hear exactly what Mozart heard - which might have been unpolluted by the sound of air-conditioning, but was probably significantly polluted by the sound of noblemen talking, noble ladies swishing their fans, and noble horses stamping their feet just outside.
But I want to hear the music in a way that preserves the balance of the parts. I do not want to hear a modern trumpet in Brandenburg 2, because if played with the requisite exuberance it will drown the other soloists.
I want instrumental lines that should contrast to be played on instruments that contrast, and lines that should blend to be played on instruments that blend. I do not want to hear the gamba parts in Brandenburg 6 played on cellos, because it destroys the contrast with the cello part.
I want the music to be played in a style that the composer would recognise, not reinterpreted for our times. I do not want to hear anything by Bach played by Jacques Loussier, because .... OK, that's an extreme case.
I do not like to hear baroque music played with continuous vibrato, because vibrato was an ornament. You do not ornament every note; ergo you do not play every note with vibrato.
But I do not rule out reinterpretations that respect the music. I like to hear Bach played by modern brass, if done well enough. It is not what Bach heard, but I think it can come close to what he might have imagined. I like the "Beethoven clarinet concerto", even if its protagonist has abandoned it. Beethoven did not object to a piano version - would he have been shocked by a clarinet version?
To return to the modern basset clarinet, my objection to it is that it misses the point. I don't care about a few notes in the wrong octave, and I doubt Mozart would have done either. He wrote for a five-octave piano; I wonder how many times he found himself playing a keyboard with a smaller range, and just adjusted his music on the fly? (Maybe he swore semi-audibly as he did so.) Yes, it is interesting to hear the exact shape of a few passages as Mozart wrote them (or our best guess at least) but for me that is a rather minor consideration.
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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: Mark G. Simon
Date: 2006-11-28 14:11
I think the disjunction of a melodic line suddenly jumping up a 7th when it ought to be continuing down the scale is a really major consideration.
A really really major consideration.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana--Mediocrates (2nd cent. BC)
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