 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DrH2O
Date: 2009-11-19 02:39
I have quesion about why composers chose certain key signatures/clarinet combinations.
I'm looking at a piece of music for clarinet and piano that calls for an A clarinet and is written in 5 sharps. After stressing over what I would do since I don't have an A clarinet, I realized how easy it is to transpose this key to Bb major for Bb clarinet (if I have my transposition correct).
Which begs the quesiton, why on earth would a composer write it in B major for A instead of in Bb major for Bb clarinet ? Nothing in the piece falls outside the range of a Bb instrument. More generally, why do composers choose certain key signatures? Having never taken a music theory or music appreciation class, I haven't the foggiest idea!
Thanks,
Anne
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Author: GBK
Date: 2009-11-19 03:30
Aaron Copland rarely wrote for the A clarinet.
Thus, off the top of my head, in Rodeo, we have:
- "Hoedown" as one long tonguing exercise in (written) E major for the Bb clarinet.
- The famous solo in "Saturday Night Waltz" in 5 flats
- "Buckaroo Holiday" in 5 flats.
If I also recall, "Lincoln Portrait" is for Bb clarinet and the keys modulate between 4 sharps and 5 flats.
...GBK
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-11-19 04:36
Sounds like poor instrument choice in this particular situation.
As a composer, I'll tend to pick whatever key strikes my fancy, though I'll also pick certain keys based on what range I want things to sit in on any particular instrument (e.g. if I want the lowest violin sound possible, I may pick a key so that the lowest note on the violin part is a G).
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-11-19 12:44
Alex wrote,
>>Sounds like poor instrument choice in this particular situation.>>
I'm guessing Alex is right. From the questions I see on the composers' bulletin board at sibeliusmusic.com, I think unfamiliarity with the instruments for the whole orchestra is common. Most of the composers there play the piano and at least one other instrument. Many also sing. Often, these composers write well for other instruments in their own families: a clarinet player generally will compose competently for the other woodwinds, for instance. The bulletin board, good books on orchestration (Rimsky-Korsakoff!), classes and so forth help a great deal, but even with those resources, many (I'm strongly tempted to write, "most") composers remain fairly clueless about instruments that operate in a completely different way from the familiar ones. I can't self-righteously exempt myself, since I wouldn't dare try to write for the harp, for instance, even after spending considerable time puzzling over harpists' instruction manuals!
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: Chris P
Date: 2009-11-19 13:03
Richard Strauss uses what could be considered the 'wrong' clarinet in such pieces as the oboe concerto where the entire piece is written for Bb clarinet - the 1st and 3rd movements are in D major where you'd expect to use an A clarinet (puts it in F), though the middle movement is in Bb major which is where the Bb is at home. In 'Four Last Songs' he does a similar thing - I think the first two movements use what seems to be the 'wrong' choice of instruments (I haven't got the score to hand to check). Maybe he did this to avoid as many throat Bbs as possible.
In Ravel's 'Introduction and Allegro' the tonic key is six flats, and Ravel wisely uses and A clarinet in this instead of a Bb - so that's three sharps for the A clarinet instead of four flats for the Bb.
In Dvorak's 9th he could have used an A clarinet throughout instead of changing to Bb at the beginning and ending of the 2nd movement - it's concert Db major which puts the A clarinet in E major, though there's nothing tricky in these Db major sections.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: salzo
Date: 2009-11-19 15:48
"More generally, why do composers choose certain key signatures?"
Different keys SOUND different. Some describe it as having a different "color", "feeling", "shape", whatever, the sound is different. Mozart said that A major was the key that best captured 'heaven'. Messiaen said that he heard keys and tones in colors.
listen to the mozart played on Bb and A-definitely has a different character in A major compared to Bb major. It is not so much the different clarinet that makes it sound different, but the key that gives it a different character.
There is a reason composers do not only write in C major- C major sounds different than A, B, D, E, F, Bb, C#, etc. the sound the composer hears, is the sound that he writes.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-11-19 16:17
There's the condition (not the best term, but I can't think of a better word) called synaesthesia where the listener with this condition experiences colours when hearing sounds or notes - presumably the visual cortex is stimulated by sound as well as vision.
I can't remember who it was quoted from or who it referred to, but a concert-goer with synaesthesia assumed the lights in the auditorium were dimmed for the performance so they can see/experience the colours better - they assumed everyone experienced the same sensations when listening to music.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-11-19 16:24
Interesting for me that this has come up at this particular time. The reading orchestra I play in is going to read Prokofiev's 4th symphony this week. I've never played this piece before.
The first clarinet part is written entirely for B-flat clarinet, except for a single 4-bar section of the first movement that is for clarinet in A. This little (tiny, minuscule, really) 4 measure phrase is written without key signature (the previous *3-sharp* signature is explicitly canceled), but the first two bars are (for A clarinet) D major arpeggios (F-sharp written as an accidental) and the other two measures are also arpeggiated, the notes forming an F-sharp-7 chord, although the A-sharp in that chord is written as a B-flat instead.
I won't even bother with why B-flat instead of A-sharp - the passage is surrounded before and after with longish rests, so I have no idea until we play it how it fits harmonically. But why a copyist (I've read any number of times that Prokofiev wrote all parts in his scores at concert pitch - I haven't seen the score for this) changed clarinets at all is a complete mystery. Maybe some inside joke.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-11-19 16:43
As an orchestra player I can only tell you what my experiences have been and the conclusions I've made from that. They don't write for the clarinet key they write for the C instruments and than need to choose which clarinet to use. Sometimes the A clarinet is used so they can get the low concert Db, the Bb can only play a low D, concert pitch. Sometimes a composer is smart enough, or considerate enough, to write for the clarinet with the easiest key signature. That's how it all began in the first place, writing for a different clarinet so they could play in the proper key. The earliest clarinets could not play certain sharps or flats so had to change the clarinet key. Some composers just don't know enough about orchestration so they just write for the Bb regardless. More then once we've had a low Eb written in a Bb clarinet part and had to transpose it on the A clarinet to play that lower note, fortunately not too often though. Sometimes, especially with Strauss and Mahler, they would want a different sound so they would change clarinets for that reason. (There's lots of bass clarinet in A written by Mahler, Wagner and Ravel, not Strauss, but I don't think that was intended for a "color" change.) I think composers of band music are more considerate of the clarinet because almost all of it is written for the Bb clarinet and I think most at least consider the key signature for the clarinet, I said most. As far as solo pieces go I can't think of any off hand that begins in a very difficult key but some will go in and out of some difficult keys to satisfy the composers needs. Hope this helps. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-11-19 17:01
"I think composers of band music are more considerate of the clarinet because almost all of it is written for the Bb clarinet and I think most at least consider the key signature for the clarinet, I said most."
Same applies for some composers/arrangers of military band music - they very often transpose everything up a semitone higher from the original orchestral version so the clarinet parts are the same written notes, but played on a Bb instead of the original A (and also to suit all the other Bb, Eb and F pitched instruments).
Sometimes this makes it easier for concert pitch instruments (eg. Hamish McCunn - 'Land of the Mountain and the Flood' which starts in concert D and then ends up in B major in the orchestral version), or it makes things a real pain such as the band arrangement of 'Orpheus in the Underworld' where the clarinet cadenza has exactly the same written notes as the orchestral version but played on a Bb, but the oboe solo that follows is now in Abm instead of Gm - likewise with the band arrangement of 'Carnival Romaine' where the cor anglais solo is shunted up to Ab instead of the original G.
There's a band arrangement of 'La Forza del Destino' which is in a horrendous key - possibly six flats concert pitch - and then you get the band version of Shostakovich's 'Festive Overture' that has been put down a semitone to concert Ab so the clarinet solo isn't as easy as it would be if it was put up a semitone into Bb.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2009-11-19 19:51
What about the Francaix clarinet concerto?? Uses the Bb instrument which results in virtually all movements having either 3, 4 or (mainly)5 sharps in the key signature, only the trio of second movement is written C and then is full of accidentals!!
Why o why didn't he write it for the A clarinet??
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-11-19 20:10
Norman Smale wrote:
> Why o why didn't he write it for the A clarinet??
Apparently he did. See:
http://test.woodwind.org/Databases/Klarinet/2003/09/000604.txt
Sounds like the B Major key signature was more or less an artifact of the transposition process. I wonder if it would look less imposing if somebody took the key signature out and wrote everything out as accidentals.
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