Most modern bass clarinets are straight-bodied, with a small upturned silver-colored metal bell and a curved metal neck. Early examples varied in shape, some having a doubled body making them look similar to bassoons. The bass clarinet is fairly heavy and is supported either with a neck strap or with an adjustable peg attached to its body. While the upturned metal bell makes the bass clarinet look similar to a saxophone, the two instruments are fundamentally different. Bass clarinet bodies are most often made of grenadilla or African Blackwood, or (more commonly for student instruments) plastic resin, while saxophones are typically made entirely of metal. (All-metal bass clarinets do exist, but are rare.) More significantly, all clarinets have a bore which is basically the same diameter along the body of the instrument. This cylindrical bore differs from the saxophone's conical bore and gives the clarinet its dark tone and low pitch; importantly it also causes a clarinet to overblow at the twelfth compared with the saxophone's octave.
The bass clarinet plays an octave lower than the B-flat soprano clarinet. While the range of the latter ends at a written low E (sounding D below middle C), most bass clarinets have keywork to enable at least a low E-flat (sounding D-flat a half step above the cello's lowest C), and most professional and advanced bass clarinetists own instruments with extensions down to a C a full octave below written middle C. At concert pitch this note is the B-flat below the second ledger line below the bass staff. This gives the bass clarinet a usable range of almost four octaves, quite close to the range of the bassoon; indeed, many bass clarinetists perform works originally intended for bassoon or cello because of the plethora of literature for those two instruments and the scarcity of solo works for the bass clarinet.
The bass clarinet has an appealing, rich, earthy tone quite distinct from other instruments in its range, drawing on and enhancing the qualities of the lower range of the soprano instrument.
The earliest record of a bass clarinet is a description of an instrument, called the "basse-tube," invented by G. Lott in Paris in 1772, though at least three primitive instruments exist that may date to the 1750s or earlier. The next bass clarinet to be described was the Klarinetten-Bass by Heinrich Grenser, circa 1793. This instrument had a folded, bassoon-like shape and an extended range, and was presumably intended to serve as a bassoon replacement in military bands. Desfontenelles of Lisieux built a bass clarinet in 1807 whose shape was similar to that of the later saxophone. It had thirteen keys, at a time when most soprano clarinets had fewer.
Additional designs were developed by Dumas of Sommières (who called his instrument a "Basse guerrière") in 1807; Nicola Papalini, circa 1810 (an odd design, in the form of a serpentine series of curves, carved out of wood); Sautermeister of Lyons ("Basse-orgue") in 1812; Gottlieb Streitwolf in 1828; and Catterino Catterini ("glicibarifono") in the 1830s. These last three, and several others of the same period, had bassoon-like folded shapes, and most had extended ranges. A straight-bodied instrument without extended range was produced in 1832 by Isaac Dacosta and Auguste Buffet.
Finally, Adolphe Sax, a Belgian manufacturer of musical instruments, designed a straight-bodied form of bass clarinet in 1838. Sax's expertise in acoustics led him include such features as accurately-placed, large tone holes and a second register hole. His instrument achieved great success and became the basis for all bass clarinet design since.
Notation
Orchestral music for bass clarinet is written using one of two systems.
- a) Conventional treble clef in B♭. This sounds an octave and a tone lower than written and therefore uses the same fingerings as the soprano clarinet.
- b) Bass clef in B♭. This sounds a tone lower than written. The player must, of course, be able to read bass clef. For music written in bass clef, higher passages may be written in treble clef to avoid the use of excessive ledger lines, but this should not be confused with system a), in which notes sound an octave lower than in system b).
System a) is used in orchestral music by most composers west of Germany and in all show, concert band and clarinet choir music. System b) is used chiefly by Wagner, Mahler, Shostakovich and eastern European composers, although there are exceptions.
Music is occasionally encountered written for the bass clarinet in A, e.g. in Wagner operas and Mahler symphonies; this music also tends to be written in bass clef. Very few modern players own a bass clarinet in A; most play these parts on the B♭ instrument, transposing them down a semitone.
Bass clarinet soloists and ensembles
It was not until the 1950s that classical performers began to adopt the bass clarinet as their primary instrument. The pioneer was the Czech performer Josef Horák (d. 2005), who is credited as having performed the first ever solo bass clarinet recital on March 23, 1955. This marked a turning point when the instrument first became thought of as a soloist's instrument.
Because the repertoire of solo music for the bass clarinet was quite small, most bass clarinet soloists specialize in new music, while also arranging works composed for other instruments from earlier eras (such as the Bach Cello Suites). Beginning with Horák, many players have commissioned works for the instrument, and consequently there now exists a repertoire of hundreds of solo works, many by prominent international composers such as Brian Ferneyhough. In addition to Horák, other specialist performers include Dennis Smylie (United States), Harry Sparnaay (Netherlands, who has worked with important composers such as Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, and Morton Feldman), Evan Ziporyn (United States), and Michael Lowenstern (United States); the latter two are also composers.
In October 2005, the First World Bass Clarinet Convention was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, at which Horák was the guest of honour and played in one of the many concerts given by the leading bass clarinetists from around the world (including all the aforementioned performers, as well as many others).
At least two professional bass clarinet quartets exist. Rocco Parisi's Bass Clarinet Quartet is an Italian group whose repertoire includes transcriptions of music by Rossini, Paganini, and Piazzolla. Edmund Welles is the name of a bass clarinet quartet based in San Francisco. Their repertoire includes original "heavy chamber music" and transcriptions of madrigals, boogie-woogie tunes, and heavy metal songs.
Musical compositions using bass clarinet
Perhaps the earliest solo passages for bass clarinet -- indeed, among the earliest parts for the instrument -- occur in Mercadante's 1834 opera Emma d'Antiochia, in which a lengthy solo introduces Emma's scene in Act 2. (Mercadante actually specified a glicibarifono for this part.) Two years later, Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote an important solo for bass clarinet in Act 5 of his opera Les Huguenots.
The most familiar piece in classical music using the bass clarinet is probably "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, in which the instrument's low tones contrast with the tinkling higher pitches of the celesta.
There are a few major solo pieces for bass clarinet, including:
Other pieces featuring this instrument include:
Bass clarinet in jazz
While the bass clarinet was seldom heard in early jazz compositions, a bass clarinet solo by Omer Simeon can be heard in the 1926 recording "Someday Sweetheart" by Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers. Additionally, Benny Goodman recorded with the instrument a few times early in his career.
Harry Carney, Duke Ellington's baritone saxophonist for 47 years, played bass clarinet in some of Ellington's arrangements, first recording with it on "Saddest Tale" in 1934. He was featured soloist on many Ellington recordings, including 27 titles on bass clarinet - see New DESOR, vol.2, page 350.
Eric Dolphy (1928-1964) was the first major jazz soloist on the instrument, and established much of the vocabulary and technique used by later performers. Bernie Maupin emerged in the late 1960s as a primary player of the instrument, playing on Miles Davis's seminal record Bitches Brew as well as several records with Herbie_Hancock's Mwandishi group. His style resembles Dolphy's in its use of advanced harmonies.
While the bass clarinet has been used often since Dolphy, it is typically used by a saxophonist or clarinetist as a second or third instrument; such musicians include David Murray, John Surman, Bob Mintzer and James Carter. Very few performers have used the instrument exclusively, but one such performer is the Baltimore-based American musician and bandleader Todd Marcus. Klezmer clarinetist Giora Feidman is known for idiosyncratic use of the bass clarinet on some klezmer and jazz tunes.
References
- "Clarinet", The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments 3 volumes, ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1984.
- Kennicott, Philip. "Notes on The Nutcracker". Dance Magazine 64 (1990):76–7 December 1990.
- Rendall, F. Geoffrey. The Clarinet, Second Revised Edition, London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1957.
- Sachs, Curt. A History of Musical Instruments, New York: W.W. Norton, 1940.
- Luciano Massagli and Giovanni M. Volonté. The New DESOR, An updated edition of Duke Ellington's Story on Records, 1924-1974, Milan, March 1999
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