The
contrabass clarinet is the largest member of the
clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
familyThe clarinet family is a musical instrument family including the well-known B♭ clarinet, the slightly less familiar E♭, A, and bass clarinets, and other clarinets....
that has ever been in regular production or significant use. Modern contrabass clarinets are
pitched in BB
The contrabass clarinet is the largest member of the clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
familyThe clarinet family is a musical instrument family including the well-known B♭ clarinet, the slightly less familiar E♭, A, and bass clarinets, and other clarinets....
that has ever been in regular production or significant use. Modern contrabass clarinets are
pitched in BB
The contrabass clarinet is the largest member of the clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
familyThe clarinet family is a musical instrument family including the well-known B♭ clarinet, the slightly less familiar E♭, A, and bass clarinets, and other clarinets....
that has ever been in regular production or significant use. Modern contrabass clarinets are
pitched in BB{{musicA transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are read at a pitch different from the corresponding concert pitch, which a non-transposing instrument, such as a piano, would play. Playing a written C on a transposing instrument will produce a note other than concert C...
, sounding two octaves lower than the common B{{music|♭}}
soprano clarinetThe soprano clarinets are a sub-family of the clarinet family.The B clarinet is by far the most common type of soprano clarinet - the unmodified word "clarinet" usually refers to this instrument...
and one octave lower than the B{{music|♭}}
bass clarinetThe bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
. Some contrabass clarinet models have a range extending down to low (written) E{{music|♭}}, while others can play down to low D or further to low C. Some early instruments were pitched in C;
Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's
Fünf OrchesterstückeThe Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16 was composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upon the request of his publisher, are as follows:...
specifies a contrabass clarinet in A, but there is no evidence of such an instrument ever having existed.
The contrabass clarinet is also sometimes known by the name
pedal clarinet, this term referring not to any aspect of the instrument's mechanism but to an analogy between its very low tones and the pedal tones of the
tromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, or the pedal division of the
organThe pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
.
Subcontrabass clarinets, lower in pitch than the contrabass, have been built but only on an experimental basis.
The EE{{music|♭}}
contra-alto clarinetThe contra-alto clarinet is a large, low-sounding musical instrument of the clarinet family. The modern contra-alto clarinet is pitched in the key of EE and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the EE contrabass clarinet...
is sometimes referred to as the "EE{{music|♭}} contrabass clarinet".
History
The earliest known contrabass clarinet was the contre-basse guerrière invented in 1808 by a goldsmith named Dumas of Sommières; little else is known of this instrument.
The batyphone (also spelled bathyphone, Ger. and Fr. batyphon) was a contrabass clarinet which was the outcome of W. F. Wieprecht's endeavor to obtain a
contrabassContrabass refers to a musical instrument of very low pitch; generally those pitched one octave below instruments of the bass register...
for the reed instruments. The batyphone was made to a scale twice the size of the
clarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
in C, the divisions of the
chromatic scaleThe chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...
being arranged according to acoustic principles. For convenience in stopping holes too far apart to be covered by the fingers, crank or swivel keys were used. The instrument was constructed of
mapleAcer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
-wood, had a clarinet mouthpiece of suitable size connected by means of a cylindrical brass crook with the upper part of the tube and a brass bell. The pitch was two
octaveIn music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
s below the clarinet in C, the compass being the same, and thus corresponding to the modern bass tuba. The tone was pleasant and full, but not powerful enough for the contrabass register in a military band. The batyphone had besides one serious disadvantage: it could be played with facility only in its nearly related keys, G and F major. The batyphone was invented and patented in 1839 by F.W. Wieprecht, director general of all the
PrussiaPrussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n
military bandA military band originally was a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music...
s, and E. Skorra, the court instrument manufacturer of
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. In practice the instrument was found to be of little use, and was superseded by the bass tuba.
{{listen|filename=Contrabass Clarinet - Fragment from 'Late Spring'.ogg|title=Tudor Tulok - Fragment from 'Late Spring'|description=|format=
OggOgg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
}}
A batyphone bearing the name of its inventors formed part of the Snoeck collection which was acquired for Berlin's collection of ancient musical instruments at the Hochschule für Musik.
Soon after Wieprecht's invention,
Adolphe SaxAntoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax was a Belgian musical instrument designer and musician who played the flute and clarinet, and is best known for having invented the saxophone.-Biography:...
created his clarinette-bourdon in B{{music|♭}}.
In 1889 Fontaine-Besson began producing a new pedal clarinet (see photograph). This instrument consists of a tube 10 feet (3 m) long, in which cylindrical and conical bores are combined. The tube is doubled up twice upon itself. There are 13 keys and 2 rings on the tube, and the fingering is the same as for the B{{music|♭}} clarinet except for the eight highest semitones. The tone is rich and full except for the lowest notes, which are unavoidably a little rough in quality, but much more sonorous than the corresponding notes on the double bassoon. The upper register resembles the chalumeau register of the B{{music|♭}} clarinet, being reedy and sweet.
None of these instruments saw widespread use, but they provided a basis for contrabass clarinets made beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by several manufacturers, notably those designed by Charles Houvenaghel for
LeblancLeblanc, Inc. is a musical instrument manufacturer based in Kenosha, Wisconsin.The company was purchased on 1 August 2004 by Steinway Musical Instrument Company, which now operates Leblanc as a division of its Conn-Selmer subsidiary.Leblanc inc...
, which were more successful.
Producers
There are several present-day producers of the contrabass clarinet.
Selmer ParisHenri Selmer Paris company is a French family-owned enterprise, manufacturer of musical instruments based in Paris, France in 1885. It is known for its high-quality woodwind and brass instruments, especially saxophones, clarinets and trumpets...
makes a rosewood version (model 41) looking much like a longer version of the bass clarinet, with full keywork, and Leblanc USA has a plastic instrument in a similar long-body design. Leblanc Paris builds two versions made of metal, model 340 (known as a
paperclip contrabass due to its folded shape) with range to low C, and the model 342 (similar in shape to the Selmer and Leblanc USA models, with range to low Eb). In 2006
Benedikt EppelsheimBenedikt Eppelsheim is a world-renowned German maker of high- and low-voiced saxophones, the soprillo and tubax , which are available exclusively from him...
introduced a metal contrabass clarinet with a folded shape somewhat resembling that of a
baritone saxophoneThe baritone saxophone, often called "bari sax" , is one of the largest and lowest pitched members of the saxophone family. It was invented by Adolphe Sax. The baritone is distinguished from smaller sizes of saxophone by the extra loop near its mouthpiece...
, described as a full
Boehm systemThe Boehm system is a system of keywork for the flute, created by inventor and flautist Theobald Boehm between 1831 and 1847.Prior to the development of the Boehm system, flutes were most commonly made of wood, with an inverse conical bore, eight keys, and tone holes that were small in size, and...
instrument with a full set of four right hand trill keys.
Performers
Probably the best known musician who has made significant use of the contrabass clarinet as a solo instrument is
Anthony BraxtonAnthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
. Other performers (most of whom use the instrument in the genres of jazz and free improvised music) include
James CarterJames Carter is an American jazz musician.Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play there before moving to New York City. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the mid-1990s, playing saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet...
,
Douglas EwartDouglas R. Ewart is a multi-instrumentalist and instrument builder. He plays sopranino and alto saxophones, clarinets, bassoon, flute, bamboo flutes , and didgeridoo; as well as Rastafarian hand drums .Ewart emigrated to the United States in June 1963 and became...
,
Vinny GoliaVinny Golia is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation....
,
Mwata BowdenMwata Bowden Mwata Bowden Mwata Bowden (b. Memphis, Tennessee, United States, October 11, 1947, is an American jazz reeds player associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and an instructor in improvisational Jazz at the University of Chicago...
, Wolfgang Fuchs, Hans Koch,
Ernst Ulrich DeukerErnst Ulrich Deuker is a bass player and contrabass clarinet player. He became known with the band Ideal....
,
Paolo RavagliaPaolo Ravaglia is an Italian clarinet player and performer.-Biography:Versatile and eclectic Italian clarinet player, renowned for the wideness of his repertory and the originality of his musical projects...
,
Hamiet BluiettHamiet Bluiett is an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. His primary instrument is the baritone saxophone, and he is considered one of the finest living players of this instrument...
, and
Edward "Kidd" JordanEdward "Kidd" Jordan is an American jazz saxophonist and music educator from New Orleans, Louisiana....
.
Leroi MooreLeRoi Holloway Moore was an American saxophonist best known as a founding member of the Dave Matthews Band. Moore often arranged music for the songs written by frontman Dave Matthews...
, saxophone/woodwind player of the
Dave Matthews BandDave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
, played a contrabass clarinet on the song "So Right" from the 2001 album
EverydayEveryday is the fourth studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on February 27, 2001.-Sales:The album did very well in the United States. It opened at #1 with 755,000 copies sold its first week, and stayed at #1 for two weeks. After 25 weeks of sales, it sold over 2.5 million copies. To date,...
.{{Citation needed|date=October 2007}}
Musical compositions using contrabass clarinet
Solo literature for the instrument is relatively scarce. Examples include:
- Scherzo Fantastique by Alfred Reed
Alfred Reed was one of North America's most prolific and frequently performed composers, with more than two hundred published works for concert band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chorus, and chamber ensemble to his name...
- Ombra by Franco Donatoni
Franco Donatoni was an Italian composer.Born in Verona, he started studying violin at the age of seven, and frequented the local Music Academy...
- Anubis, Nout by Gérard Grisey
Gérard Grisey was a French composer of contemporary music.-Biography:Gérard Grisey was born in Belfort, France on 17 June 1946. He studied at the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany from 1963 to 1965 before entering the Conservatoire de Paris...
- interference by Richard Barrett
Richard Barrett is a British composer.-Biography:Barrett began to study music seriously only after graduating in genetics and microbiology at University College London in 1980 . From then until 1983 he took private lessons with Peter Wiegold...
- also employing the player's voice and a pedal bass drum.
- Celephaïs by Héctor Moro - with electronics created manipulating contrabass clarinet sounds -
Some compositions making notable use of the contrabass clarinet include:
- Triple Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass clarinet by Donald Martino
Donald Martino was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Martino studied composition with Ernst Bacon, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Luigi Dallapiccola...
- Saint François d'Assise and Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà... by Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
- Fünf Orchesterstücke, Opus 16 by Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
- in the first movement Schoenberg calls for a Contrabass Clarinet "in A" (see above)
- Symphony No. 1 ("Of Rage and Remembrance") by John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
- Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...
by James BarnesJames Charles Barnes is an American composer.Barnes studied composition and music theory at the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Music in 1974, and Master of Music in 1975. He studied conducting privately with Zuohuang Chen...
- The Flood by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
- Symphony No. 7 by Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
- Asyla by Thomas Ades
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
- The Lost Art of Letter Writing by Brett Dean
Brett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...
- L.A. Variations, Wing on Wing and Piano Concerto No. 1 by Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
- Hadewijch - Part II of De Materie
De Materie is a four-part vocal and orchestral composition by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, which he composed over the period 1984 to 1988. Robert Wilson directed the first staging of the work on 1 June 1989 at the Muziektheater, Amsterdam, with James Doing, Wendy Hill, Beppie Blankert and...
by Louis AndriessenLouis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
- KRAFT by Magnus Lindberg
Magnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic.-Education:...
- Doctor Atomic
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on 1 October 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb was...
by John Adams
- "Josephslegende" by Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
- "Fervaal" by Vincent d'Indy
Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...
- "Blue Shades" by Frank Ticheli
- "Poem" (woodwind transcription) by Charles Griffes
Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer for piano, chamber ensembles and for voice.-Musical career:...
- Epitaph
Epitaph is a composition, and a live album, by jazz musician Charles Mingus. It is over 4000 measures long, takes more than two hours to perform, and was only completely discovered during the cataloguing process after his death...
by Charles MingusCharles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
- Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
regularly used the contrabass clarinet in his avant-garde compositions.
- "Frangelica II" by Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....
{{reflist}}
External links
- Contrabass clarinet page at contrabass.com.
- The Contrabassclarinet (sic) Society
- Photos and audio example of a Leblanc paper clip model instrument.
- Video of a piece for contrabass clarinet and electronics by Francisco Colasanto, played by Marco Antonio Mazzini.
- http://hem.passagen.se/eriahl/ctrbass.htm An interesting link for contrabass clarinet enthusiasts
- Video of "Deep" (Alex Shapiro) for contrabass clarinet and electronics (played by Marco Antonio Mazzini).
{{Clarinet}}