Solo Woodwind Repertoire: Clarinet

The clarinet is an instrument I have enjoyed more and more over the last year or two of intensive listening. The glissando at the beginning of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue particularly stands out to me, and I'm excited to see what else this instrument is capable of.

Malcolm Arnold - Fantasy for Clarinet Op.87

I first watched a live performance of this piece on youtube in order to make my own observations; I then listened while following the score to gather further details.

The piece is full of contrasting dynamics and demonstrates the clarinets capability of being very intricate at both loud and soft volume. There is very quick arpeggiated runs, and some very large intervalic leaps (three octaves at one point!) to compliment some very sudden dynamic changes, along with several instances of sextuplets and demisemiquavers being used.

The melody was often very flowing and melodic, especially in the opening material (later Arnold treats the theme to some rhythmic variations). The composer repeats this opening material, but directs it to be perfomed 'pp possibile' - as soft as possible. This is excellent at showing me how capable the instrument is at such a low dynamic. A mixture of articulation is used throughout the piece, and trills are used on more than one occasion.

I very much enjoyed the contrast in this piece. It didn't include 'extended' clarinet techniques, but excellently demonstrated various sides of the instrument's character, inside a memorable and enjoyable melody.

Igor Stravinsky - Three Pieces for Clarinet

This is a collection of three contrasting pieces for solo clarinet. As expected there are very frequent changes of time signature; this occurs in the first and third pieces, with Stravinsky omitting a time signature for the middle piece entirely.

The first piece doesn't demonstrate a change of mood throughout, and keeps a static tempo and dynamic until the end, which is marked 'poco piu f e poco piu mosso' - a little more loud and a little more movement. There are frequent changes of time signature, in almost every bar, providing rhythmic interest and tension. There is lots of disjunct motion in this piece, although there are also frequent splashes of stepwise movement.

The second piece is very quick. The agile instrument is put through its paces as there is much use of acciaccatura's and tuplets on top of the already quick tempo. I particularly enjoyed the rising arpeggiated figures, starting low in the clarinet's range and rising rapidly. In the middle section there is a very effective pianissimo and acciaccatura combination, exploiting the silky lower end of the clarinet's register. Use of pauses mark the change of sections, and act as a call to order of the often frantic melodic. This piece doesn't feature a key signature, giving a less rigid structural framework to the melody.

The third piece marks another contrast, with a slightly slower but still nimble melody, with liberal use of articulations. Like the first piece we have frequent changes of time signature. Dynamics are markedly contrasting, with a long crescendo at one point stretching over nine bars, and at the other end of the scale we see decrescendos on pairs of notes:

Stravinsky - 2 Pieces for Clarinet, Piece 3, Bar 26

In The Study of Orchestration 3rd Ed., Adler describes the lowest register of the clarinet (called the Chalumeau register after the medieval instrument) as 'deep and rich'. I'd have to agree with this description, and can see that this luscious tone is readily exploited by composers. The use of pianissimo is also a common  and pleasant feature, that I will certainly be using if I decide to score assignment two for this instrument.