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Re: Contrabass cl rental in NY?

Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2010-05-29 17:38

Tom and Normancult - Thanks for your thoughts as well.
John wrote: "The guys here probably won't rent you their great horns, but would love to play with your group."
That is what some of them indicated to me privately. If I owned a contrabass I wouldn't rent it out either.

The piece in question (by Jonathan Harvey) requires only that the contrabass player play multiphonics and whale sounds based on a low C. The composer requests in the part that the instrument be a Selmer low C rosewood instrument (because someone told him that the Selmer instrument produces richer multiphonics). We played the Harvey on tour in Europe and they have a lot more money for music over there. The festivals would rent a low C Selmer rosewood contrabass for us since that what Harvey specifies.
In Nice, France the festival spent over 1000 euros to rent the Selmer contrabass and have it driven up from Paris!!
In Europe the instrument would be waiting next to my chair before the dress rehearsal (and not before). I would see if the low C came out (which it never did easily) and figure out what to do to hold a low C. The solution was always to hold the low C key closed with my foot.
Someone wrote a while ago that one has to be a repairman if you intend on playing a rosewood contrabass, since the soft rosewood is more susceptible to humidity changes and that in turn affects the mechanism. In essence the instrument needs adjustment every time you open the case.
The mechanisms on the Selmer rosewood instruments never worked. I couldn't actually "play" anything on the instrument - the keys on the low notes often did not open and close easily.
I simply fingered a low C and then kept the low keys closed, sometimes with a foot, sometimes with a foot and a leg, sometimes with two feet and a leg, sometimes with two feet and two legs. At one point the low C came out best when I held keys down with two feet and two legs, the other clarinetist held down two keys with his hand and the trombonist behind me kept a key closed with his trombone slide (we didn't perform it like that however). I wondered if the leaky low C actually helped me get better whale sounds!

Harvey indicates in the part that if the contrabass does not descend to a low C, one has to play the multiphonics an octave higher, based on the middle C. That middle C on contrabass is of course a low C on a low C bass clarinet so I will play it on regular low C bass clarinet.

I have since heard that a Selmer rep indicated that as far as he knew, no rosewood low C contrabass clarinets had been imported into the U.S. so in a way that gets me off the hook.

Thanks everyone for your input.
----------------------------------------------------
Simon Aldrich

Clarinet Faculty - McGill University
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Principal Clarinet - Orchestre de l'Opera de Montreal
Artistic Director - Jeffery Summer Concerts
Clarinet - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne

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