Author: mrn
Date: 2009-12-19 17:58
The Cb makes more harmonic sense (at least to me). If you play a C natural in bar 415, you get a nasty clash (a minor 9th) between the orchestra's concert A and the clarinet's concert Bb. If you play Cb in bar 415, on the other hand, your note is doubled in the orchestra in that bar, so there's no clash.
Not that Copland doesn't include some dissonant intervals elsewhere in the passage, including a minor 9th or two, but when he does, he mitigates the dissonance so it's not quite as harsh. For one thing, when he employs sharp dissonances in this passage, they are lower down in the chord and also confined to the strings. He doesn't create sharp dissonance *between* the clarinet and the strings.
Also, the minor 9ths in the strings are really minor 2nds with octave doubling of the top note. I have always considered minor 2nds to be more pleasant sounding and more easily "softened" with other tones than minor 9ths.
The ambiguity of the passage with regard to C natural vs. Cb seems to stem from bar 413, where the orchestra does not have the concert A. If you play a Cb, you get an F#m7 chord. If you play C natural, it's an F#7 (dominant 7th).
It's only in bar 415 that the problem with C natural becomes apparent.
Post Edited (2009-12-19 18:23)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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