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Music open thread: Clarinet concertos [1]

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Date: 2025-01-21

Continuing my survey of solo music for various instruments accompanied by orchestra or band. I plan to post these mostly on Mondays, or on Tuesdays if there’s some special observance (like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day yesterday), each and every week until I get to the double bass. Some weeks I might publish nothing else.

Having started with the flute and then the oboe, it’s now time for the clarinet, a single reed woodwind instrument that by Beethoven’s time had become an essential member of the orchestra. Each Beethoven symphony includes clarinets, and I’d be surprised to find any orchestral composition of his with clarinets entirely absent.

Beethoven never wrote a clarinet concerto, however. Some of his contemporaries and predecessors did, though.

I know which one most of you are thinking about. Number 622 in the Köchel catalog of the compositions of Leopold Mozart’s son, Wolfgang Amadeus, in the key of A major (for clarinet in A, of course). YouTube brought renowned Portuguese clarinetist Carlos Ferreira to my attention, and I certainly want to foreground musicians like him.

But the video is 36 minutes? Is it that long because there are 30 minutes of music and a 6-minute standing ovation? Or, perhaps more likely, what should only be 25 minutes of music gets dragged out to 35 minutes due to misplaced reverence. I found this too long even though I’ve slogged through Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, which is much, much longer.

I decided to look for something else with Carlos Ferreira. I found his performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, which I’m guessing he’s playing on B-flat clarinet.

x YouTube Video

The clarinet, as some of you reading this are aware, is a transposing instrument. The composer writes a middle C on the score but expects the instrument to sound the B-flat or A below middle C, according to whether clarinet in B-flat or clarinet in A has been specified.

I do know some opera composers like Antonio Salieri wrote for clarinets in C. I posted to IMSLP parts for clarinet in A for Salieri’s Les Danaïdes Overture even though he wrote those parts for clarinets in C.

The piece starts in D minor (which transposes to F minor — four flats) but switches to D major (which transposes to F major — just one flat), and that’s when Salieri gives the clarinets a lot of notes. The piece ends back in D minor and the clarinet does have a lot to play, but it’s mostly half notes, though at a fast tempo. I was actually asked to provide parts in the original C, so I did.

Much more important for listeners is that the clarinet provides the clearest example of how widely a woodwind instrument’s tone quality varies across its range. From lowest to highest, the registers of the clarinet are labeled chalumeau, clarion and altissimo. The chalumeau register is often described with adjectives like “full,” “rich” and “dark.” The clarion register is generally described as “bright and sweet.” And the altissimo register can be quite shrill, especially when played by a beginner.

The clarinet has a noticeable “break” between the chalumeau and clarion registers. Composers are advised to not write too heavily through this break if the music is intended for amateurs rather than professionals.

Listen for the three registers in Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.

x YouTube Video

The most famous recording of this piece is probably the one by Benny Goodman, who also recorded Stanisław Skrowaczewski’s Clarinet Concerto. Stan who? He was much better known as a conductor than as a composer, he directed the Minnesota Orchestra for several years. As a composer, he was run-of-the-mill avant-garde.

William Neil also strikes me as run-of-the-mill avant-garde. He wrote a concerto for piccolo clarinet, but he was asked to rewrite the solo part for the somewhat more commonly available clarinet in E-flat.

x YouTube Video

Bass clarinet concertos

The bass clarinet looks a little bit like a saxophone. The bass clarinet in B-flat sounds a full octave below the clarinet in B-flat. There have been made bass clarinets in A, but composers should check availability.

I had never heard of Geraldine Green before and it's possible I never would have if I hadn’t looked for bass clarinet concertos.

x YouTube Video

This is definitely a discovery, in my opinion.

Jonathan Russell’s is interesting, but not as much as the Green, in my opinion.

x YouTube Video

The open thread question: what’s your favorite music with solos for clarinet?

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