Andrew Stiller wrote:
In addition to the ones you mentioned (by "great bass" I assume you
meant the contra-alto)
No, I meant he had an excellent bass clarinet with a low C. Sorry for
the confusing choice of a word.
I don't mean to say he has every clarinet ever made. I think he has
tried to get one of everything that an orchestral and chamber player
might run across the need for in the standard rep. I don't think he has
an alto (has there ever been an orchestral part for an alto? If so,
why, when a basset horn is better?) He doesn't have either contrabass
(which _has_ been written for in orchestra a few times). I'll ask him
about what else he has when I see him.
And I think the designation "contra-alto" is ridiculous, BTW. Just what
exactly about altos is that clarinet "against"? The low clarinet in Eb
can be a bass, or a double bass, or even a contrabass (which _has_ come
to mean something) , but there is no way that "contra-alto" can mean
"double alto" which is what I presume it is meant to mean.
Gunther Schuller, in one of his nastier moods, scolded one of our
clarinet players for calling an Eb contrabass a "contrabass", saying it
was a "contralto." My mom was a contralto. She didn't have the same
range as that thing.
RBH
Andrew Stiller wrote:
He wants to be able to play anything on the instrument for which it
was written. I forget if he said he has a clarinet in every key, or
is lacking something in G. (Is there anything?)
In addition to the ones you mentioned (by "great bass" I assume you
meant the contra-alto) there is of course the Bb contrabass and the Eb
alto. Also, the standard high clarinet in the early-mid 19th c. was in
F (see, e.g., the Berlioz _Symphonie funebre et triomphale_). Above
that there is the clarinet in Ab, mostly used in central Europe to
play vn. 1 parts in band transcriptions, and one in Bb, now extinct,
that used to be played in jazz sometimes.
There is (was?) a clarinet in high G that was a standard part of the
Schrammelmusik folk trio in Germany and Austria. And there was a
clarinette d'amour in (low) G that led a fitful existence for a few
decades around 1800.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com/
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