 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mike Cyzewski
Date: 2025-06-13 03:57
I am looking for a transposed first clarinet part to Verdi's Il Trovatore.
Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank You
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-06-13 06:12
Hi, Mike. Good to see you here!
I just played Il Trovatore in March. It was completely transposed for Bb clarinet. Is that what you're looking for?
Karl
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Author: Mike Cyzewski
Date: 2025-06-13 20:31
Hi Karl!
Thanks for responding .
I wonder if the latest editions are already transposed like the part you played.
I have performed a transposed Rigoletto part in Bb and A.
Our music will not arrive until two weeks before the first rehearsal so I was trying to get ahead of the game. Yes! a completely transposed for Bb clarinet Trovatore is definitely what I am trying to procure. IMSLP is mostly in C.
Please say hello to Kim!
Best, Mike
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2025-06-14 13:50
If Verdi wrote for C Clarinet, he wanted a C Clarinet. In his last opera, Falstaff, the last movement is on C for a reason.
Shame if publishers ard transposing everything. Clarinettists will be losing their heritage.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-06-14 17:30
JTJC wrote:
> If Verdi wrote for C Clarinet, he wanted a C Clarinet. In his
> last opera, Falstaff, the last movement is on C for a reason.
>
> Shame if publishers ard transposing everything. Clarinettists
> will be losing their heritage.
Clarinettists will be losing the need to carry around three instruments. In fact, I'd rather play the Anvil Chorus from the original part on a C clarinet - it's actually more awkward on a Bb. But if I didn't own a C clarinet, I'd rather have a transposition written out than sight-transpose it.
Karl
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Author: lmliberson
Date: 2025-06-14 17:30
JTJC wrote: "If Verdi wrote for C Clarinet, he wanted a C Clarinet. In his last opera, Falstaff, the last movement is on C for a reason."
And might you share that reason with us?
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2025-06-14 22:15
Always worth having access to a C for opera work. Pretty much all of Italian opera before Puccini has C clarinet parts.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Axel
Date: 2025-06-15 17:58
JTJC wrote:
>If Verdi wrote for C Clarinet, he wanted a C Clarinet. In his last opera,
>Falstaff, the last movement is on C for a reason.
JTJC raises an interesting topic that might be worth a separate thread:
When did the composer really have the shrill C-clarinet in mind, and when is the C part based on coincidences in the edition? I don't have an opinion on the Trovatore and the Falstaff. However, I am fairly certain that Richard Strauss wrote all parts for C-clarinet intentionally, and not just because in his last two major wind works at the end of his life used A-, B- and C- clarinets in parallel.
But I don't believe, for example, that Beethoven really wanted to hear C clarinets in his 1st Symphony, and that his intentions might be better realized if the symphony is played with B-flat clarinets.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2025-06-15 19:14
Axel wrote:
> When did the composer really have the shrill C-clarinet in
> mind, and when is the C part based on coincidences in the
> edition? B- and C- clarinets in parallel.
>
> But I don't believe, for example, that Beethoven really wanted
> to hear C clarinets in his 1st Symphony, and that his
> intentions might be better realized if the symphony is played
> with B-flat clarinets.
Going back through the history of this BBoard and the Klarinet listserve before it, the strongest, most persistent and insistent proponent of using the clarinets the composer specified was Dan Leeson. But his main point, as I remember it, was that, because of clarinets' limited keywork in the 18th and earlier 19th centuries, they were better suited to play in certain keys. The choice of C, Bb or A clarinet (or even D, which is closer to a piccolo Eb than to a C in timbre) would have been dictated primarily by the key of the music. But Dan maintained that the composer then may have written differently for a C clarinet than for a Bb or an A based on characteristics of the instrument. Transposing the part to a different instrument, by this reckoning, might miss something of the character that would have have colored the original part.
Register "breaks" (with attendant color changes) occur at different *pitch levels* among C, Bb and A clarinets. Certain *fingerings* were likely intonation outliers on early clarinets or presented color discrepancies. It wasn't, to Dan, just that a C clarinet is "brighter" than a Bb (Dan would have cringed at using "brighter" to describe a musical tone), it's that, among other differences, a C scale on a C clarinet has different inflection points than an Eb scale (same pitches, different fingerings) on an A clarinet. Throat A on a C clarinet has a very different timbre than a B on Bb clarinet or a C on an A clarinet. That composers may have taken into consideration these differences in timbre and technical facility of each clarinet in the keys the they chose for their composition explains why, in Dan's (and others') view we should use the clarinet the composer specified.
I think modern mechanisms and 200 years of improvement in acoustical design have probably overshadowed many if not most of the reasons for composers' original choices. There are other considerations that might make choosing a different clarinet at least arguably sound - technical ease, staying with a warm clarinet, lack of enough time to safely make a change where the composer indicates it. I've never been convinced that, except for the rare exceptions like the Strauss examples, playing C clarinet parts on a Bb clarinet really compromises the composer's intentions or spoils the musical result in a meaningful way.
Karl
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Author: J. J.
Date: 2025-06-15 21:42
Not every performer is responsible for continuing the supposed “heritage” that is somewhat complicated, at best. All modern clarinets are significantly different from what many of these pieces were first performed with, anyway. Choosing to use a Bb is hardly an inappropriate choice with this in mind.
Depending on what instruments are available, I also don't think it’s unreasonable to prioritize intonation above playing on the “correct” clarinet.
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Author: jim sclater
Date: 2025-06-15 22:22
Speaking as a member of an orchestra for 30+ years, I always viewed the hard-liners edict about the necessity to play only the clarinet indicated in the score as rather silly. To me, J.J. is correct concerning the need to prioritize intonation.
I also wonder just how many conductors can always hear the timbral difference in a passage on Bb clarinet and the same passage played on A clarinet.
Then there are the players who play everything on a full Boehm instrument and transpose the A clarinet parts. I never heard anyone giving them grief about this. Bottom line for me was to try my best to play the passages in tune and play them as comfortably as possible. As a composer, if the question is between subtle timbral differences vs. good intonation, I'll take good intonation every time.
jsclater@comcast.net
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Author: donald
Date: 2025-06-16 00:29
Well here's my 10c...
If you want (or NEED) to play it all on one clarinet, by all means go ahead, you can still make good music. And circumstances sometimes just call for 1 clarinet, there's more at play than just what the composer/conductor etc wants. Another day those wants might be paramount, just not today.
Then again- I just performed the Verdi requiem the other week using my C clarinet for the 2 movements that call for it. It sounded right, was easier than on Bb too, and the intonation challenge (swapping in a cold hall) was won by using a sharper mouthpiece for the C clarinet. It worked well, and sounded good.
Beethoven 5 is also a lot more fun if the section uses the C clarinets (as I've written on this BB previously), but I've also performed it just using Bb and that was fine.
When I performed the Ginastera Variations with ACO a few years back I played the solo on A clarinet, swapping to C for the high passage. This is NOT what the composer called for, but it worked out fine for the composer as it enabled me to nail the solo at every performance.
Different horses, different courses. I DO know one lad who won a big audition playing the Ginastera on Bb clarinet. Good for him, very nice, monster technique!
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Author: JTJC
Date: 2025-06-16 01:40
The point about Falstaff is that it was Verdi's last opera. He knew what he was doing by then, and knew how to achieve it. If choice of clarinet was all about the key the music was in, why score for C Clarinet when the last Act opens in E Major. He'd already scored for Bb and A in the rest of the opera, but the C turns up in the last act. He knew the clarinet and great players, so I believe his choice was an informed one. I would say Verdi wrote for C Clarinet the last act of Falstaff because it's lighter character fits with the mood of the music. Of course, nobody can ever be sure of a composers real intentions unless they've been written down.
Same for Schubrt's Octet, why score a movement for C Clarinet when the movement is in Ab? With a clarinet of that period, imagine the colours there'd have been in that key, and the problems it created for intonation. There's a brilliant performance of the Octet on YouTube and Sabine Meyer switches to C Clarinet for that movement.
Some time ago, on this Board, we had Anthony Pay pondering the use of the scored C Clarinet in Beethoven's Violin Concert. After touring the piece in the US, and trying it with both C and Bb, his conclusion was that the C was best. I believe the C Clarinet does still have a place amongst clarinettists.
The more I play the C Clarinet, the more I appreciate it's qualities and its need for special attention. Rather like what I hear of the Eb clarinet, it needs extra care to give its best.
I fully accept that for practical reasons a player might want or need to use a different clarinet to the one scored. Their choice.
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