Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2007-01-16 14:31
I'm not near my source materials just now, but off of the top of my head, I recall that Percy Grainger used it in one or two compositions. Not the sort of thing likely to appear on too many programs outside of Blighty, but still legitimate music.
There's a pretty good examination of the whole "extensive orchestral literature for the alto clarinet" (please note that I am being sarcastic here) question in Cecil Forsyth's book Orchestration, an old and well preserved copy of which is in my library at home. Not too much there, but the English composers were well represented in what was listed.
Forsyth tries to be kind, but from the general tenor of his remarks you gather that he didn't see a surge in alto clarinet chairs in orchestras any time soon. Time has shown his assumption to be the correct one.
One title sticks in my mind, something like "Apollo And The Sea". It was full of thematic stuff, with the alto horn representing one of the characters in some dramatic setting or other. Whatever it was, I can say with certainty I've never seen it in some thirty-five years of university and community orchestra performing.
(It was possible that these compositions were being subsidized by B H as a sort of make-work project to benefit the hundreds of thousands of skilled alto clarinet craftsmen that were once employed in making the things - but I don't know for sure...)
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
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The Clarinet BBoard
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