 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Aussie Nick
Date: 2005-01-12 03:23
This might be another one for GBK Mahler 5 has been removed from our first concert program this year and is being replaced by the Alpine Symphony. The music hasn't arrived yet, but I know it has Eb in it somewhere. Any other idea about instrumentation?
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2005-01-12 03:51
According to Kalmus:
4d2, 3d1+hph, 3d1+Eb, 4d1 - 8d4, 4, 4, 2, timp, perc, 2hp, cel, org, str
banda: 12 hn, 2 tpt, 2 trb
I believe this translates to:
4 flutes, 2 doubling piccolo
3 oboes, 1 doubling english horn
heckelphone
3 clarinets, 1 doubling bass clarinet
Eb clarinet
4 bassoons, 1 doubling contrabassoon
8 horns, 4 doubling Wagner tuba
4 trumpets
4 trombones
2 tubas
timpani
percussion
2 harps
celeste
organ
strings
a separate band including:
12 horns
2 trumpets
2 trombones
There's a start. If I've misinterpreted something, someone please correct me.
Impressive forces.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-01-12 04:27
Strauss - Alpine Symphony
Eb clarinet
Clarinet 1 (Bb)
Clarinet 2 (Bb)
Clarinet 3 (Bb, Bass clarinet and ContraBass clarinet)
Also, in addition to Jack Kissinger's information:
2 sets of timpani
Percussion (bass drum, cowbell, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam-tam, thunder machine, triangle, wind machine)
...GBK
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Author: Douglas
Date: 2005-01-12 06:01
I believe the Eb part has fluttertongue in it, on a C above the staff.
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Author: Aussie Nick
Date: 2005-01-12 06:06
God help us... we are lucky to have 4 or 5 decent horn players let alone 20... I think the conductor has lost his marbles
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Author: graham
Date: 2005-01-12 07:21
How often is it actually done with the contrabass? Of hand I cannot remember seeing one in the orchestra when I have been to performances.
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Author: VermontJM
Date: 2005-01-12 10:51
That Eb part is a BEAST!!!
We did a reading here a few months ago - To accomodate all of the people who wanted to play, the conductor allowed doubling on parts- 2 first, 2 second, 2 Ebs. We also had a seperate C player. Well... no bass and no firsts showed up, so I chose to not play the Eb part and played first instead and one of the seconds played the Bass line on Bb when they could (just to try to cover the part.)
Needless to say... TWO Ebs and a C would have been OVERKILL bigtime. As it was, I am pretty sure I have permanent hearing loss from the altissimo notes the Eb and C played in unison throughout the piece. I think Strauss just wanted to be able to say that he used all the clarinets... I am surprised there's no Ab sopranino part for the piece!
I couldn't believe just how high these parts went and the doubling (tripling... quadrupling...) that went on with those ridiculously high notes. I did a double-take when I saw a crazy high Bb show up in the first part. I don't even remember the fingering because I never have to play it!!
Good luck! It was a fun piece to read through. I wish we could have actually worked it.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2005-01-12 13:53
I've heard it, never played it or even viewed score. Very "impressive" R Strauss, size and sound well beyond Wagner [his competition?] and his own "tone poems" Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2005-01-12 15:38
Funny story:
Years ago, when Kurt Mazur was the conductor at the NY Philharmonic, I got a call from Carl Schiebler, the Phil's contractor, to rush over to the Hall to play the Alpine Symphony with the NY Phil. It seems, Peter Simenauer had just taken a bad fall and wasn't able to play that night. I had just finished playing my matinee on Broadway, so the last thing I felt like doing was the Alpine Symphony with the Phil, with no preparation! I had worked for Mazur before, and I knew how demanding he could be, so I was a bit apprehensive, to say the least. I agreed to come up to the Hall to cover for Peter. They found a set of "tails" for me to wear, as my Broadway "blacks" wouldn't do.
Mazur spoke to me briefly before the concert, and told me to watch him carefully for all the Eb clarinet solo cues. I said yes, of course I would.
The performance went reasonably well, I thought, considering I was sight reading, playing with the Phil without a rehearsal, subbing for the "giant" Peter Sinenauer, and somewhere in a bad dream.
After we finished playing, the crowd went wild, and Mazur was pleased, so he proceeded to give solo bows to various Phil players who had prominent solos. Stanley got his bow, then Mazur gestured in my direction for a bow. I assumed he wanted Roland Koloff, the famous Timpanist to get a bow, but he looked right at me again...and with both hands up, pretended to play the little clarinet. I then stood for my bow, completing my "out of body" experience.
Be ready, be bravo...be a little crazy. You will have fun!
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-01-12 17:10
GBK, I've never heard anything about a contra in the Alpine symphony. Where did you get the information and why is it usually cut out? If this is true I'll remind our manegement the next time it comes up. We played it a few weeks ago, without a contra.
Alphie
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2005-01-12 17:29
Performed the Alpine Symphony some years ago with Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. It was a blast!
The 3rd clarinet part, as I remember, was for C clarinet doubling bass clarinet--heavily weighted toward the C clarinet which contained several solos more typical of a first clarinet part. No mention of contrabass cl anywhere in my part!
There is a marvelous video of this piece in performance with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic; I have it on VHS--don't know if it was ever transferrd to DVD.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-01-12 17:40
The L.A. Phil also think it needs a contra...
http://www.laphil.org/resources/piece_detail.cfm?id=472
...but only 16 horns in total, not 20.
Maybe someone actually has the score and can tell us the truth.
-----------
If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: larryb
Date: 2005-01-12 18:50
I saw Karajan and the Berlin do this at Carnegie Hall many years ago.
All I really remember from it is the wind machine sound.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-01-12 19:31
Alphie... I was going from memory on the Alpine Symphony and very well could be mistaken about the Contrabass clarinet (although...why not? everything is in there)
I just checked my Rudolf Kempe recording, and their listed instrumentation is:
4 Flutes
2 Piccolos
3 Oboes
English Horn
Heckelphone
Eb clarinet
2 Bb clarinets
C clarinet
Bass clarinet
4 Bassoons
Contrabassoon
20 French Horns (8 onstage/12 off stage)
6 Trumpets (4 onstage/2 off stage)
4 Tenor tubas
2 Tubas
2 Harps
Celeste
Pipe organ
18 Violin I
16 Violin II
12 Violas
10 Cellos
8 Basses
Percussion (wind machine, thunder machine, glockenspiel, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, triangle, cowbells, tamtam, 2 sets of timpani)
There is also a notation saying that occasionally 6 of the woodwind and the 2 harps are doubled.
As most know, this was one of Strauss' favorite works. He once said about this piece:
"Finally I have learned to orchestrate."
Perhaps, just taking Orchestration 101 might have been less trouble...GBK
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Author: diz
Date: 2005-01-12 20:10
There are some beautiful moments ... the cascading waterfall (on the way UP the mountain is delicately scored, but on the way down - during the thunder storm - it's rather more darkly scored). The cow bells in the pasture always make me smile, silly really.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: diz
Date: 2005-01-12 20:16
is this AYO or MYO??
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Bigno16
Date: 2005-01-12 20:28
HOW COULD YOU REMOVE MAHLER 5!?!?!? Ahhh, I would have cried. It's clearly one of the best pieces ever written. As I and my friend like to say, "All good things lead to Mahler."
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Author: Aussie Nick
Date: 2005-01-13 00:50
Diz - I live in Brisbane, not Melbourne. This is QYS (Queensland Youth Symphony) with John Curro. They removed Mahler 5 because The Queensland Orchestra are playing it in their Maestro Series concert 2 weeks before us.
I honestly don't know what John is planning in the way of 20 horns... I don't think there are even 20 horns studing at the Qld Con... Obviously he knows something I don't (hopefully).
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Author: Aussie Nick
Date: 2005-01-13 00:55
I have to get in a reserve player to cover the 2nd part, and I have to let them know soon whether myself or the 2nd cl. will be playing Eb. He isn't as experienced on Eb but the advantage is he can flutter tongue and I can't (yet at least - I can roll my tongue though).
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Author: diz
Date: 2005-01-13 01:24
Aussie ... I just KNOW you're in Brissy ... must have had a vague attack. You'll love the piece, it's just so silly ... and you know how noisy those trumpets and trombones can be (not to mention their percussive cousins) ... well just wait til the storm section.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Alexis
Date: 2005-01-17 14:44
Just for the record, reading from the score there is no contrabass clarinet marked anywhere. Is transposing the C clarinet part out of the question for coloristic reasons?
Cheers
Alex
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2005-01-17 17:57
On the link that David P referred to it's obvious that the LA Phil uses a contra in their performance as long as it's not just a misprint. It would be interesting to know the source of this information.
Transposing c-clarinet parts or not is always a matter of practicality and also a matter of taste or lack of it. Personally I think it’s preferable to use a c-clarinet when the music asks for it. In older music it was an absolute necessity to use c-clarinets since it was nearly impossible to play in keys with more than one #/b. The choice of key signature was also more important than today because each key represented a different character much more than today. For later music when the instrument had been developed so much that it was possible to play fluidly in any key it’s more obvious that Strauss asked for a c-clarinet for a special purpose. If my memory is correct the c-clarinet part in the Alpine Symphony lies much better for b-flat so why didn’t use that instead?
Alphie
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2021-10-21 03:08
Alphie,
Resurrecting this long mummified thread out of intrigue- I'd like to ask this question:
In the scenario that a C clarinet is unobtainable(or whatever odd reason it had to be subbed by a clarinet in another key), do you think it's more preferable to to sub it with an Eb than a Bb?
The reason why I've asked this is that the C's part in the Alpine Symphony actually lies closer to the Eb's and frequently doubles the latter's, though some of it is also in unison of the Bb parts as well as the flutes, oboes and the high strings. So in this sense it seems that subbing it with a 2nd Eb clarinet seems like a better choice in terms of the register of the instrument and the color of most of the passages, though there is one passage at Rehearsal Mark 127 that descends below the Eb's range. However, transposing it for a Bb clarinet makes even less sense here IMO, as the C's part is frequently at its lower altissimo range and in unison with the Eb, and higher than Bbs 1-2. Of course a C clarinet would be the most ideal, but I think transposing that part for a 2nd Eb would be a good backup option, though I know it's far from easy switching between bass & Eb, unless you get a seperate bass clarinetist(as observed in certain live performances by German orchestras) from the C/sub Eb player!
Josh
Post Edited (2021-10-23 03:27)
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2021-10-21 03:23
GBK,
The 4-piece clarinet section for the Alpine Symphony is:
2 clarinets
Eb clarinet
Bass clarinet doubling C clarinet
That said, there has also been this practice in which the orchestra hires 2 seperate players for bass & C respectively, as seen in live performances by the Staatskapelle Dresden(with Sinopoli and Thielemann), Gürzenlich Orchester Köln( Markus Stenz, not recorded) and that famous Berlin Phil recording with Karajan conducting. This increases the clarinet section into 5 players, though the Berlin Phil/Karajan recording the Eb part was also doubled, increasing it to 6 players.
Josh
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Author: farabout
Date: 2021-10-21 04:06
HANGARDUDE wrote:
> So in this sense it seems that subbing it with a 2nd Eb
> clarinet seems like a better choice in terms of the register
> and timbre of the instrument
>
IMHO, the timbre of C clarinet is closer to Bb, than Eb.
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2021-10-23 03:44
farabout wrote:
>IMHO, the timbre of C clarinet is closer to Bb, than Eb.
You do have a fair point here, and I acknowledge that my wording was a bit confusing too(and have since changed it): I meant to say that for the specific C clarinet part in Alpine is more closer to that of the Eb's and demands the C to really 'scream' in the same way the Eb does in the same piece. Hope this clarifies what I'm trying to say.
Josh
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2021-10-23 22:08
When I've played the bass and third part it had a lot of C clarinet. I transposed it all on my Bb which meant playing ofter in the altissimo register, especially having to go one step higher. A lip killer.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: farabout
Date: 2021-10-25 04:47
HANGARDUDE wrote:
> I meant to say that for the specific C clarinet part in Alpine is
> more closer to that of the Eb's and demands the C to really
> 'scream' in the same way the Eb does in the same piece.
>
One can scream out the C part on Bb way better than on Eb horn - eg, Orio Odori on his "Lesamore" album.
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Author: HANGARDUDE
Date: 2021-11-03 07:33
Ed Palanker wrote:
> When I've played the bass and third part it had a lot of C
> clarinet. I transposed it all on my Bb which meant playing
> ofter in the altissimo register, especially having to go one
> step higher. A lip killer.
>
Hey Ed, great to hear from you again! Yes, Alpine's C/bass part is predominantly a C clarinet part, which is already often in the altissimo, hence one of the reasons why I suggested the 2nd Eb substitute idea(in the case a C clarinet cannot be obtained) albeit one passage at the end of the storm section.
Josh
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