 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Josh Schultze
Date: 2002-01-30 14:46
What is the general consensus on playing music that had not been originally written for the clarinet? Do you generally play those works written specifically for clarinet: from Mozart to the present. Or do you extend you're playing to the wind repertoire of the Baroque? For example would you ever consider playing a piece by for flute and harpsicord, a sonata for oboe and piano or a Bach recorder suite?
Thanks
Josh the Younger
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-01-30 16:24
Josh...This is a good question.
There is certainly nothing wrong with performing "pre-Mozart" works on clarinet.The Baroque repertoire is too rich and important for it to be ignored as not having being originally written for clarinet.
Many Baroque pieces work perfectly fine in an adaptation for the clarinet, and there have been numerous quality transcriptions.
In the concert hall, this would make a nice programming change for you and your potential audience. Often, performing a Baroque piece as your first selection is a good recital opener.
Saxophonists have totally adopted (adapted) Baroque literature into their repertoire and it is very commonplace to hear at least one selection on a recital. Certain Baroque pieces are routinely learned by saxophone majors in universities and play an important part in developing saxophone style and technique.
As clarinetists, we should follow their lead. It's time to take the "snobbery" out of only performing music specifically for one instrument or another.
Music is the conveyance of emotions and thoughts. The medium used is less important than the performance...GBK
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-01-30 16:49
Josh -
I'm all for playing baroque music on the clarinet. It gives you access to centuries worth of great music written before our instrument was invented, and playing this music improves your understanding of later music by showing you what it evolved from. Also, there's a lot of real clarinet music from before the Molter concertos that we usually think of as being the earliest.
Solos for flute or recorder usually lie uncomfortably high for clarinet. Oboe music lies much better, as does violin music that doesn't have too much bariolage (arpeggiating over the strings), which is effortless on violin but horrendous on clarinet. It gives you excellent transposing practice. Viola solos also work well, and you can simply pretend they're in bass clef (moving the key signature two steps "sharpward"). You'll be missing the two bottom semitones, but that can be worked around.
Bach didn't write a recorder suite. His Orchestral Suite # 2 has a solo part for flute. It can be played on clarinet, but the tessitura is pretty high, and it would be hard to put together an orchestra that wouldn't prefer to play it with a flutist. It wouldn't work with a piano reduction.
Bach's Harpsichord Concerto # 5 is generally agreed to have been originally for oboe d'amore, and there are transcriptions of it available. Since oboe d'amore is in A, you can play it on A clarinet.
If you know some good singers, there are numerous gorgeous Bach cantata arias with oboe d'amore obbligato, and I think there are some Telemann cantatas from Die Hormonische Gottesdienst with the oboe d'amore obbligato.
A good alternative is learning to play recorder, which I do a lot. It's quite easy to pick up, since recorders in C (soprano, tenor) use a slight variation on clarinet clarion register fingerings, and recorders in F (sopranino, alto, bass) use clarinet chalumeau fingerings.
There's too much great music to pass by. Go for it!
Ken Shaw
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Author: donald nicholls
Date: 2002-01-30 18:35
try playing any of the Telemann flute/recorder suites on the clarinet- even though the music doesn't look that hard it's really quite challenging to make it sound anything near as good as on the period instrument (or even the modern flute).... plus interpretation wise it is very interesting.
good work- something interesting to keep one in love with music.
Mozart Violin Sonata Kv 380 in B flat major (or is it 378? one of the two is in Bdur) works really well on the clarinet with very few changes to the Violin part- again, it's hard for the clarinet to match the ease and sweetness of the violins upper register, but a good challenge to take on in my opinion!
nzdonald
(expect some players/teachers to hold it against you, however)
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2002-01-31 12:21
The Bach solo cello suites and solo violin sonatas and partitas can be fun to play. There are many, many double, triple and quadruple stops in the slow movements (and some in the fast movements) that have to be arpeggiated on clarinet. This doesn't work for all of the movements, though- some just aren't wind compatible. The fast movements are a real tonguing workout, too.
I also have a copy of a solo clarinet arrangement of the Toccata and Fugue in d minor. It's *hard* and doesn't exactly preserve the spirit of the original but still sounds very cool.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-01-31 16:44
As I love baroque music (and occasionally enjoy playing some on a recorder), this is one reason I've ben looking forward to buying a C clarinet. Too lazy to transpose? Not really, just want to play in the original keys.
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Author: Josh Schultze
Date: 2002-01-31 20:40
Ken,
I have many pieces for recorder and for the Bb clarinet the range is indeed uncomfortably high. Often I just play an octave lower (minus a whole step) and this works much better: less intense sounding.
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Author: peter cigleris
Date: 2002-01-31 21:01
Has someone forgot to mention the abundence of chalumeaux repertoire? the rep is expansive with concertos by Fasch and Telemann, as well as concerto grosso by Vivaldi, Graupner. Check out Colin Lawson's book 'Chalumeaux in the 18th Century'
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-02-01 14:52
peter cigleris asked,
Has someone forgot to mention the abundence of chalumeaux repertoire?"
Occasionally, something is posted which makes me feel rather stupid, for having completely overlooked the obvious. So it is with this one. I had never even considered a review of available compositions for Chalumeau, but now I shall. Thanks for the suggestion, Peter.
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Author: Josh Schultze
Date: 2002-02-04 15:01
Would playing baroque music written for the flute and recorder on an E-Flat clarinet put the notes in a more comfortable range for the clarinet? A fellow clarinet player suggested this. You would transpose down a minor third. Would that be sufficient to allow you to play most baroque flute and recorder music? Or even after such a transposition would it still be "uncomfortably high" for a clarinet?
Thanks
Josh
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