 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-11-21 20:39
This is meant for Old Geezer from a different post. Even though I have something like this on my website I’ll clarify the orchestra seating in the USA for him and anyone else interested. We have about 50 professional orchestras in the USA. About 18 of them are “full time” that is 52 weeks, my orchestra is one of them. The others play anywhere from 30 to 45 weeks, more or less. Only about 15 of them have four clarinets, about 15 have three full time clarinets and the rest have two and hire a third when needed or have someone on a part time contact. There are many other orchestras in the USA but they would not be considered fully professional. They use a lot of freelance players and do not meet weekly on any type of regular schedule.
Although a player is usually listed as Principal we often refer to them as 1st, the terms are interchangeable. The music folder says 1st, not principal. A co-principal means their responsibilities and salary are equal, taking tenure into consideration of course. Associate 1st, or principal, means that the responsibilities are shared but one has more responsibility than the other and gets paid less of course, the same as assistant 1st, but in this case the division of responsibility is even further apart. Of course this all depends on the conductor and the section, it could be more or less in any of these cases. In most of our orchestras that have a co, associate or assistant principal, that person will most likely also be the Eb player. In a few orchestras like the Met orchestra there are two principals, no other title. One assumes they are equal in all responsibilities and whoever plays Eb is probably up to them. The LA Philharmonic may have to same set up, I’m not sure.
Here in the Baltimore Symphony we have an assistant 1st and Eb player. He usually plays 1st on one piece on a regular classical concert, will usually play 1st on the pops concerts and youth concerts. The conductor and the “principal” player decide what and when he plays 1st clarinet. The assistant is also the 3rd clarinet in our orchestra but if there’s a 3rd and bass on the same part, or even 2nd and bass then I, the bass clarinetist, always play the entire part. That’s not the same in all orchestras either. As the bass clarinetist, my contract reads bass and 4th clarinet; I am responsible to rotate to give the second player off. We have mandatory rotation in our contract so it is not true that if there is no bass clarinet part that I don’t have to play, though I do get off much more than the second.
It is true that the 2nd player is of equal importance to the section as the first because without a solid 2nd the 1st player can simply not play their best. The principals are the ones that get most of the glory, and salary, but are also in the hot seat more often. The 2nd player however does usually play more often then anyone else in the section.
Remember, here in Baltimore we have a section of four players, many major orchestras in the USA only have three players and in those cases the bass clarinetist, but sometimes the second, is also the assistant 1st. Then the 2nd player is usually the Eb player. It has become common for new players contracts to read, bass clarinet and utility and in our case when the 2nd player was hired his contract reads 2nd and utility so he is responsible to play another seat if necessary, either Eb or bass. We lucked out when we hired him because he, like myself, plays them all. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-11-22 03:42
From the three options in your title, the third one sounds the msot interesting 
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-11-22 13:09
Sorry about that, please notice the period after the Ass. standing for assistant but you all knew that. It does make an interesting looking title though and opened for some good wise cracks. What the heck, life shouldn't be so serious all the time. I'll have to ask our 3rd player if he's an ass or ass. 1st clarinetists. Good for a chuckle anyway.ESP
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2009-11-22 13:30)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-11-22 15:07
I've always assumed, Ed (you would know first-hand), that the other difference among Assistant, Associate and Co is the salary hierarchy attached to each.
In Philadelphia they have, as far as I know in all sections, associate principals. They had assistant principals when I was growing up in the 1960s. I think the change came mostly when Eugene Ormandy retired and his practice (continued, I think, from Stokowski) of using all four players in each wind section on *every* piece (all the way back to Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) if there were parts for the instrument was discontinued. Under Ormandy, the *assistant* first player sat in the third chair and doubled the first part in tutti passages and the "assistant" second player sat in the fourth chair and doubled the second part. The assistant first played first clarinet in concerto accompaniments, which were cut down to two players, and was also the Eb player. The assistant second player was the bass player when that was needed (for which, up to the late 1950s, I've been told, he was paid a doubling fee). Once the "assistants" were no longer brought on stage to double parts, their roles really changed - I suppose to justify their positions on the payroll, they were assigned more or less half the first parts, generally still concerti and smaller pieces, while the principals still played the major work on each program. Gradually the arrangement has evolved to the point where the associate will cover entire programs while, I suppose, the principal takes a vacation week or fulfils a solo commitment somewhere else. At other times, the principal plays the entire program. So the differences between Philadelphia's version of Associate Principal and a full Co-Principal arrangement may at this point be questions of salary and priority in deciding which pieces each plays.
In any case there is more than "political correctness" involved in the use of each job description.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-11-22 15:45
Karl, your observations are mostly correct. Every orchestra handles the assignments differently, there is no one way fits all. I believe in some the associate or assistant play more 1st important parts and perhaps full classical concerts, than others. It has a lot to do with the players involved, the conductors preferences and their traditions.
As far as the "old" days of having the parts doubled in the Philadelphia orchestra, that was common practice years ago in many Americian orchestra's. I joined the BSO in 1963 and we also doubled everything. I even remember doubling a 2nd clarinet part in a Brahms piano concerto. Actually I just sat there and took up space. We were told back then that one of the main reasons for us having woodwind doubling was to satisfy the boards questions of why we needed four players in each woodwind section. Many of them were upset that in so many pieces there were only two or three players so we began doubling almost everything, clever heh? Baltimore began hiring four players in each ww section in about 1960 when they expanded their youth concert and pops concert programs so it was not uncommon to have three different programs almost every week. They also instituted a program where the principals went out to schools to do youth programs at the same time the rest of the orchestra was doing pops concerts or full youth concerts.
In my earlier days Stokowski used to conduct us every year as a guest conductor. He would always have his own parts edited for doubling with many additions to the parts. I was very common for me to be playing along with the violins or viola's in different sections for color and support. But almost every other conductor in those days just expected us to double the forte parts which of course made no sense at all since we didn't have a hugh string section like Philly, NY etc. had. We would usually be unbalanced in dynamics and for years we fought against doubling. It created intonation problems as well as balance.
One conductor had us double the beginning of Tch. 5th so that all four of us played the opening. It was actually a nice full sound but we had to be very careful with intonation. At least we were doubling a soft spot for a change. Back in those days, as the bass clarinetist, I never got off anymore then the others. I like it better this way. ESP
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