At 1:25 PM -0400 6/7/07, Raymond Horton wrote:
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.
Yes, and that's apparently de rigeur these days for a serious
orchestral bass clarinetist. The Woodwind & Brasswind catalog shows
2 professional models (Buffet and Selmer) and two unknown brand
student models. We ran into it for the very first time in Don
Sebesky's revised orchestration of "Kiss Me, Kate," and it was a real
problem for us since nobody in the area had one. So apparently it's
expected on Broadway these days, as well.
And interestingly enough, the catalog shows two F basset horns (both
with extended range to written low C) and several BBb contrabass
clarinets, but no Eb altos and no EEb contra-altos, even though those
are fairly common band, if not orchestral, instruments.
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?)
Better? Or just different? And of course the matter of low range,
although the extension to low C would take care of that. I suspect
that very few band directors assign their best players to alto
clarinets, and like every member of the family it is an individual
instrument and has to be learned and mastered on its own terms.
And I think the designation "contra-alto" is ridiculous, BTW.
For starters, don't expect taxonomy to be logical!! We're talking
about musicians, remember!?
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.
Actually that's exactly what it does mean, since it is twice the
length and one octave below the alto in Eb. And since we all know
exactly what it means, trying to change the common name is a lost
cause, even if it is a dumb and awkward name. (Witness the "bass"
trumpet, which is a tenor instrument, and the rest of this
interesting thread.)
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."
I'd say the real question would be whether it should be called an Eb
bass (a 5th below be Bb bass) or an EEb contrabass, but you did
mention that above. In recorder terms, the EEb instrument would be
considered a Greatbass, but nobody uses that. The parallel in the
brass section would be the bass tuba (in F or Eb) as opposed to the
contrabass tuba (in CC or BBb), and the difference is NOT an octave.
(Of course you could equally argue that the soprano clarinet is also
an alto clarinet, and the alto clarinet is actually a tenor clarinet,
but I won't!! And why isn't the sax below the tenor called the bass,
instead of the bari?)
And then there's the basset clarinet for which Mozart wrote his
concerto, which was NOT an alto clarinet in F but a soprano clarinet
in A with a low extension down to something or other.
As I said, don't expect consistency. You simply won't find it!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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