What you said about string compositions being in D rang true. Even Bach's celebrated string aria was written in D before another musician rearranged it in G so he could play the whole Air on a G String. I have the sheet music in the original key and the music is delightful.
Just my two cents: the preference for certain keys in the baroque time was less related to "difficulty in execution" than to practical problems with tuning and temperament, especially because technically string instruments can play easily in all keys
It was created with a purpose: to cover the highest registers of the clarinet family. It's primarily been used in Italian marching bands, two Italian companies still manufacture them today - Orsi and Ripamonti. Other makers such as Schwenk und Seggelke and Steven Fox may custom make one but they're so rare the price would be exceedingly expensive. Leblanc also made them in the past but I only know of one in existence, check out Tony BC Huang on youtube 👍
It also is true scaling up or down clarinets is quite easy - Their cylindrical bore makes them easier to make whether the size. Also, they tend to sound quite nice all throughout the different sizes, which makes also the possibility for "clarinets choirs" or for players to switch to various different instruments, so making and play all of them still had much more sense than with other families of instruments.
One of the joys and frustrations of playing the recorder is having to acquire and learn all the different sizes and transpositions. I have bass through sopranino, but there's also garklein, greatbass, contrabass and subcontrabass out there somewhere. The giant ones get expensive and hard to find, and there's not a lot of call for them outside a full recorder orchestra. And the garklein is hilarious.
The basset horn is also extremely rare. I actually play the piccolo clarinet in the school band. I wish more composers would write for it so I don't have to transpose piccolo sheet music. I find it has a pretty nice timbre. Kinda like the e-flat clarinet to the e-flat clarinet. Love your vids! I learned a lot about clarinet history.
Did anyone wonder why the Bb clarinet was different at the top--not realizing that the mouthpiece was missing? I noticed the G clarinet had the Albert (or similar) fingering system as opposed to the Boehm on all the others. I recently bought a Bb clarinet having the Albert system--some notes, of course, are fingered differently from the Boehm system, but most are the same.
The mouthpiece of the Bb and A instruments are interchangeable, and often a musician will just have one mouthpiece ...with a prepared and warm reed... to shift between them in performance. The C-clarinet likely uses the same mouthpiece. Multiple instruments, one mouthpiece.
The Bb Clarinet and the A Clarinet sit on opposite sides of the Circle of Fifths, even though they're only a semitone's difference that's 5 accidentials to play. Despite modern chromatic lockwork, that's a huge difference in playing. You can make it work with just the Bb instrument, but it's a challenge. Even moreso for the Eb Alto, perhaps why you don't see Alto Clarinets (and Eb Alto Sax) in orchestral settings. Wind band and wind ensemble repertoire favors the "flat-side" of the Circle of Fifths. With strings you're more likely to be on the "sharp-side" of the Circle of Fifths.
Theoretically, yes. Mozart called for a pair of Clarinets in B (H) in Idomeneo. There are no surviving examples of period B Clarinets though. However, I know one of the English period orchestras has a pair commissioned and the tone color is said to be more akin to the C than the A the part is normally played on.
Similar to a Soprano clarinet: Low E up to altissimo E is 3 octaves, sometimes you'd have to play up to an F or even G, but only if the composer wants to punish the audience.
Considering the group names of the clarinet family (my groupings) : Sopranio - e flat Soprano - b flat, A C etc Alto - e flat. Includes basset (Matches Alto sax) Tenor - Current named B flat Bass (matches Tenor Sax & Bassoon) Bass - Curent name Contra & Contra Alto. (Matches contra Bassoon) Any comments on this?
As Bret have expose in another video you can't name instruments based on how they "relate" to another instruments from complete different families, you should name them because what function they serve, the bass clarinet is a bass instrument, it function best in the bass register because it have a robust and rich tone in that register, so it functions best in bassline parts and as a bass solo voice: composers have always score for the instrument in this way. (Stop trying to impose Sax nomenclature to Clarinets, Saxophones are a later development and they have nothing to do with Clarinets). Also, rename an instrument that has been used for almost 200 years and with a huge repertoire that calls for a "BASS Clarinet" is a silly enterprise.
@@wilhelmorangenbaum163 clarinets break this system. I’d suggest, as a clarinet player myself: Sopranino: Eb, Ab Soprano: A, Bb, C, D Alto: G Tenor: Basset Horn, Eb “alto” Bass: Bass Contrabass: Contrabass in both Eb and Bb Clarinets have a huge range because they overblow at the 12th, the B flat and A can serve both the soprano and alto role very very well, with a range from D3/C#3 to F6/E6.
@@LordFloofTM Well, we're actually not that far apart in our views, the groupings you use kinda follows the same logic my groupings follow. Some little things: - The Ab Clarinet is more alike to be a Piccolo instrument than being in the same group with the Eb, I personally group the Ab and the rare high G as Piccolo Clarinets (High G really should be the only one in use, Ab transposition is dumb). I also think that you can call the Eb Clarinet a Piccolo if you want; the term Piccolo is preferably to the term Sopranino (mostly a Saxophone related term) for the most high instrument widely used within a family, the Ab and G Piccolos are really not used that much (Ab is very difficult to play well). - The D Clarinet is more alike to the Sopranino Eb than to the Soprano Clarinets, composers used to score for the D Clarinet in conjunction with the Eb just like the Bb/A pair. - I agree with you than the "alto" member should be the instrument in G, I call it "Clarinet d'Amore". I also think that the Schwenk & Seggelke design used by Richard Haynes should become the standard design for all G Clarinets used in Classical Music. - But the problem with the G Clarinet is that it is still too obscure and specialized of an instrument to give it the position of the alto instrument within the family. That's why the Alto Clarinet is called that way, because it is the most widely available instrument right bellow the sopranos. There were a time when the Alto Clarinet was called a Tenor Clarinet in England. I really see no major issue in calling the instrument Alto Clarinet or Tenor Clarinet as long you know what instrument you are referring to. -No objection to the other members.
