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Review of 'French music for low brass: an annotated bibliography' by J. Mark Thompson and Jeffrey Jon Lemke
No full textReview of 'The Bassanos: Venetian musicians and instrument makers in England, 1531–1665' by David Lasocki and Roger Prior
No full textThe clarinet family: the C clarinet
No full textNo other instrument can lay claim to quite such a large and diverse family as the clarinet (Fig. 3.1), and even the player's basic equipment of a pair of instruments serves to distinguish him from other instrumentalists. The B♭ clarinet has reigned supreme for some 200 years, even though Mozart, Brahms and a host of other writers of orchestral and chamber music have ensured that the A clarinet also remains absolutely indispensable. Almost as familiar within the orchestra are the E♭ and bass, whilst the basset horn has a further specialist role, notably in the works of Mozart and Richard Strauss. The scope of even this select group of closely related instruments is unmatched by any other woodwind category, though in fact the clarinet family extends a great deal further – to as many as twenty-five different instruments. The tiniest is the scarcely known clarinet in high C, more than an octave higher than the normal clarinet; in increasing order of size there are then piccolo, sopranino, soprano, alto and bass clarinets ranging down to the B♭ contrabass. Least familiar are perhaps those clarinets smaller in size than the E♭, though there are also some shadowy larger representatives, such as the clarinettes d'amour in A♭ and G (pitched just below the normal A clarinet) from the latter half of the eighteenth century. An especially significant member of the family is the soprano C clarinet, the only one sounding at written pitch, whose prominent role within the repertoire positively demands its widespread revival
Book/facsimile review: 'Musical theatre at the court of Louis XIV: Le mariage de la Grosse Cathos' by Rebecca Harris-Warwick and Carol G. Marsh
No full textThe early clarinet in theory and practice
No full textA survey of the literature about the clarinet and a discussion of historical pitch and the 18th- and 19th-century design of the instrument
Book review: 'Guillaume Lekeu: correspondance; introduction, chronologie et catalogue des oeuvres' ed. Luc Verdebout
No full textSingle reeds before 1750
No full textThe remarkable and eventful history of the clarinet continues to prove an endless source of fascination amongst players and listeners alike. A wealth of new research relating to the clarinet's origins and development has been stimulated by an increasing recognition that historical instruments and performance practices have a great deal to teach us about both the art and craft of music. The earliest years of any instrument's life inevitably reveal varied patterns of acceptance, and only gradually is any coherent picture of the early eighteenth-century clarinet beginning to emerge. However, any lingering doubts about the clarinet's vigorous career in the two generations before Mozart's birth have now at last been conclusively laid to rest.
It is the special acoustical make-up of the clarinet which seems to account for many particular features of its history. For example, during the first half century of its life it really existed as two instruments; the essence of the baroque clarinet was its upper register, whereas its close relative the chalumeau was restricted to a range of a twelfth in its fundamental register. Only during the classical period did it become possible to manufacture an instrument in which both registers were relatively satisfactory and in tune. Although the baroque clarinet engaged some important composers such as Handel and Vivaldi, the repertoire for chalumeau is actually much more wide ranging in scope and deserves to be far better known
The clarinet family: introduction - clarinets in B♭ and A
No full textNo other instrument can lay claim to quite such a large and diverse family as the clarinet, and even the player's basic equipment of a pair of instruments serves to distinguish him from other instrumentalists. The B♭ clarinet has reigned supreme for some 200 years, even though Mozart, Brahms and a host of other writers of orchestral and chamber music have ensured that the A clarinet also remains absolutely indispensable. Almost as familiar within the orchestra are the E♭ and bass, whilst the basset horn has a further specialist role, notably in the works of Mozart and Richard Strauss. The scope of even this select group of closely related instruments is unmatched by any other woodwind category, though in fact the clarinet family extends a great deal further – to as many as twenty-five different instruments. The tiniest is the scarcely known clarinet in high C, more than an octave higher than the normal clarinet; in increasing order of size there are then piccolo, sopranino, soprano, alto and bass clarinets ranging down to the B♭ contrabass. Least familiar are perhaps those clarinets smaller in size than the E♭, though there are also some shadowy larger representatives, such as the clarinettes d'amour in A♭ and G (pitched just below the normal A clarinet) from the latter half of the eighteenth century. An especially significant member of the family is the soprano C clarinet, the only one sounding at written pitch, whose prominent role within the repertoire positively demands its widespread revival
Arnold Whittall: a bibliography
No full textA comprehensive list (compiled in 1995) of published writings by Arnold Whittall
Playing historical clarinets
No full textMany different types of early clarinet have long been familiar from photographs in books and journals, but a number of these are now actually being used in historical performances world-wide, giving a quite new perspective to the art of clarinet playing. The expectations of the great composers in terms of sound and musical style (‘performance practice’) has become a lively subject for discussion, widely reflected within such periodicals as the Galpin Society Journal and Early Music. There has always been much detail which a composer did not trouble to write into his scores; he simply knew that certain conventions would be observed. Some of these conventions are no longer current, whereas others have undergone significant changes of meaning. Using a clarinet for which a particular repertoire was originally intended may well make the music sound more expressive and can make more sense of what the composer actually wrote. Is the kind of performance anticipated by Mozart in his own day valid for later generations of players? We can never really answer this question, if only because life has changed so much during the last couple of centuries. The importance of the microphone in our musical lives, coupled with the various implications of air travel, are two factors which have brought about such changes that we do not have the option to turn back the clock. Even if we could hear Anton Stadler's premiere of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto from 1791, we should not necessarily want to adopt all of its features, since to some degree twentieth-century taste would almost certainly continue to influence our interpretation