 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2014-08-24 03:42
Would you always play with an A clarinet. How about if it would be an easier key signature wise to play a different clarinet then called for.
If a score called for a D clarinet would you play it on an E-flat clarinet
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: GBK
Date: 2014-08-24 03:57
derf5585 wrote:
> If a score called for a D clarinet would you play it on an
> E-flat clarinet
No. You're required to immediately go out and buy a $6000 D clarinet.
...GBK
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-08-24 04:01
Not many of us can even get our hands on a D clarinet, so the answer is Eb for sure.
The Bb versus A clarinet question is a little more tricky. The most well thought out answer to that came from Tony Pay, were he said, essentially, that it behooves us to consider both the aspects of which is more technically expedient and also which instrument makes more sense in terms of the timbre that the composer was looking for.
The other issue comes up in Brahms Symphonies. There are just some switches that are almost too fast to be practical and one winds up starting on the 'wrong clarinet' or ending up on the 'wrong clarinet.' Todays instruments are pretty similar in timbre within the same make anyway, so my feeling is that you should feel free to use what makes the most sense to you.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-08-24 04:12
Among C, Bb and A clarinet parts it depends on whom you ask whether it's better to play an awkward part on the instrument prescribed by the composer or on whatever instrument makes the part most comfortable for the player. Most of the working professional players I've known or worked with have thought nothing wrong with playing the slow movement of the Shostakovitch 5th Symphony on a Bb clarinet instead of an A clarinet. The nearly impossible instrument changes in the first movement of the Brahms 3rd Symphony are very often avoided by playing large parts of the movement that are written for Bb clarinet instead on an A so the player is ready for the big solos (written for A clarinet) that come in the exposition and recapitulation. As recently as the 1960s or 1970s, almost no one I knew owned or played a c clarinet. C parts were nearly always played (in the U.S. - I don't have any idea about European practices) on a Bb clarinet and I know more than one clarinetist who played (some still) the big Mozartiana cadenza, written for clarinet in C, on an A clarinet because it lies better than it does on a Bb clarinet.
As far as D or Eb clarinet are concerned, availability is an issue, since most players even today don't own two piccolo clarinets. Sometimes the bigger orchestras own the instruments. Probably most performances of Til Eulenspiegel and The Rite of Spring are done on Eb calrinets even though the entire Strauss and parts of the Stravinsky are written for D clarinet.
And then there is the bass clarinet in A. They exist (I think they can still be special ordered from Buffet or maybe Selmer) but very few players own one and play everything for bass on a Bb instrument.
All of that said, there are players who insist on the arrogance of assuming the composer didn't know what he was doing and had no reason for his instrument choices. By this reasoning, the great (presumably most knowledgeable) composers wrote idiomatically for the specific instrument and its specific color and strengths. If we work from the assumption that a composer chooses the specific instruments deliberately, we should honor those choices and play what the composer wrote, no matter what difficulties result for the player.
I don't know if that clears the issue for you, but it should show that there's not a cut-and-dried answer. There was for many years an ongoing battle (however good-natured) over this very question on the Klarinet listserve.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-08-24 06:02
Just was watching Brahms' 1 courtesy of the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall. A video from the late 70's shows Karl Leister clearly using his Bb for the big solo in the slow movement.
If it's ok for the Berliner's under Karajan to play Bb on a part written for A in Brahms then I guess it's OK !!!
..........Paul Aviles
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2014-08-24 22:10
Use the clarinet that makes things easier for you and don't be bullied for it either. I've taken some crap for using 'the wrong clarinet' in the past but I'll continue to use 'the wrong clarinet' where I feel more comfortable playing in an easier key than the one published.
There are plenty of instances where playing an A clarinet instead of the published part written for Bb is both much easier and far more practical for many reasons.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2014-08-25 01:23
Can a conductor SEE witch clarinet is being played?
I heard a story (do not know if true of not)
A clarinetist needed money so he took his clarinets to the pawn shop. He wanted to pawn the "A" clarinet but the pawn shop would only take the B-flat. He now had to play the "A" for everything.
Another story
A clarinetist was playing a paperclip contabass clarinet. The conductor did not like the sound of the metal clarinet so the clarinetist painted the contrabass black. And the conductor said "it sounds much better"
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: davyd
Date: 2014-08-25 03:49
The end result is what matters. I've played high parts for bass clarinet on Bb (reading down an octave) and gotten away with it. I have a C clarinet but it's not terribly reliable, so I use it only for preliminary rehearsals until I have time to write out a transposition. I've used my A clarinet in concert band a time or two, rather than deal with numerous sharps.
We have the Dvorak "New World" coming up. I plan to play it all on the A, reading the brief Bb passages in the Largo up half a step.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2014-08-25 04:18
Most orchestra players do that all the time in any given passage. Some more that others. There are "traditional" solos that just about everyone plays on the opposite clarinet. As far as Eb and D go, many orchestra players don't own a D clarinet so they play all those D parts on an Eb clarinet and I doubt anyone listening will know the difference. Sometimes it's a matter of being practical. When I used to play the 3rd clarinet part in Mahler's 5th, Bb, A, bass and some D parts as well. Because the D parts were not exposed but doubled in ensemble I just played the D parts on my Bb clarinet instead of bringing my Eb since I never owned a D anyway. I won't have done that had it been an exposed solo, but then again, the Eb player in our orchesta would have been required to play it. In the Strauss Alpine Symphony the bass clarinet part has more C clarinet than Bass. Since I don't own a C clarinet I just transposed the part on my Bb, which turned out to be tough on my lip since it was a very high part and I had to practice it a lot. No one in my section, or the conductor ever noticed that I was not using a different clarinet than was written. I used a slightly more "brilliant" sounding reed to sound a little more like a C clarinet since I had several exposed places as well as a lot of tutti and ensemble sections. I don't think anyone in the audience was disturbed, or even gave it a second thought.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-08-25 05:22
Ed Palanker wrote:
> I don't think anyone in
> the audience was disturbed, or even gave it a second thought.
>
Back in the '60s and '70s when I was studying, it was routine that passages like the opening of The Moldau or the C clarinet parts in many of the Rossini overtures and the classical symphonies, even the C clarinet solo in Symphony Fantastique, all of which are really easier on a C instrument, would be played on Bb clarinets. We practiced them that way. I don't think Gigliotti owned a C instrument, certainly not when I studied with him. Playing parts like the slow movement of the Brahms 1st on a Bb clarinet was equally routine, both because the solo involves more graceful fingerings and because the beginning of the 3rd movement features solo clarinet in Bb for which you need a warmed-up instrument.
Later in the century some clarinetists began to use C clarinets and even D clarinets (the Philly Orchestra owns a D, and I think probably they also own C clarinets). But, ironically, since at least the '60s (I don't know about anything earlier - I was too young to care) and to this day, brass players have tended to settle on a single instrument for everything regardless of what's specified in the score. Many orchestra trumpet players I know play nearly everything on a C trumpet because they want the brilliance to cut through large orchestra textures. I only rarely see alto trombones - most of the time the principal trombonist plays a tenor even in classical pieces that specify one alto, one tenor and one bass. And when was the last time anyone on the list saw a French horn player even change crooks, much less instruments for all the various horn tunings used by Classical and Romantic composers? And, thinking about band scores, does anyone make a Db piccolo any more?
Karl
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2014-08-25 11:40
>> If it's ok for the Berliner's under Karajan to play Bb on a part written for A in Brahms then I guess it's OK !!! <<
No need to guess, David the gnome and Voldemort say it's ok too.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-08-25 21:51
>> And when was the last time anyone on the list saw a French horn player even change crooks, much less instruments for all the various horn tunings used by Classical and Romantic composers? >>
Friday?
You should get out more...:-)
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-08-25 22:55
Too long a trip. Nowhere around here. Maybe I'll cross the pond some day. :=)
Unless I just don't notice otherwise, everyone I've worked with just transposes - some not as well as others.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-08-25 23:00
Of course, if you ask my wife, she'll say they'd have to smack across the face with the crook each time for me to notice.
Now, what about the Db piccolo?
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-08-25 23:23
Perhaps the horn crook transposition is more common in Europe. I went to a Herman Baumann masterclass where he used all sorts of different crooks and different placements for crooks to change pitch. He made a remark similar to "you can transpose or practice." And as I recall, there seemed to be astonishment amongst some of the others in attendance, perhaps mostly horn players.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2014-08-25 23:28
>> He made a remark similar to "you can transpose or practice." >>
Say again?
Tony
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2014-08-26 03:59
Take a look at this picture
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/QuartertoneClarinet.jpg
Now lets see someone make an A clarinet on one side and a B-flat on the other.
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: cyclopathic
Date: 2014-08-26 21:25
derf5585 wrote:
> Take a look at this picture
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/QuartertoneClarinet.jpg
>
> Now lets see someone make an A clarinet on one side and a
> B-flat on the other.
>
how to? they are different length
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2014-08-27 21:12
In The Clarinet, Jack Brymer has a picture (Fig. 19) of a simple system clarinet that he describes as "an attempt to make an instrument to play in both A an B flat by turning a concentric silver tube with prepared holes." It looks to me as though the approach was to lower the instrument's pitch by making the tone holes significantly smaller. I wonder if it worked any better than a "shoelace."
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-08-28 00:02
Not written clearly. I meant, you can practice music or practice transposing music. In person it sounded much like what Leister said about using Vandoren White Master reeds, he'd prefer to have more time to practice rather than losing a good amount of that time making reeds.
.............Paul Aviles
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