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Scan 169
Harvard Dictionary Of Music, 1944
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1CLARINET FAMILY
3bands, but are occasionally demanded in orchestral scores. Parts for the Eb clarinet are found in Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, in Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps, and in Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe; for the double-bass clarinet in d'Indy's Fervaal, in Strauss's Legend of Joseph, and in Weingartner's Orestes. There are three obscure modern instruments, related to the clarinet only in that they possess a single reed, which have been invented for the sole purpose of playing the solo English horn part in Act III of Tristan. They are the *Heckel-clarina, the Holztrompete, and the *Tarogato. The music in question is generally played by the English horn.
5III. Obsolete Forms. During the 19th century a great many other clarinets were built, e.g., the clarinet in C, the clarinet in D (called for in Liszt's "Mazeppa" and Strauss's "Eulenspiegel"; now replaced by the clarinet in Eb), the bass clarinet in C or A (Liszt, "Mazeppa"), the bathyphone (constructed by E. Skorra, 1839), etc. More interesting is the basset horn, an alto clarinet with a narrower bore, a thinner wall, and four semitones beyond the low E (which sounds A in the usual F pitch). Originally (c. 1770) it was crescent-shaped and in this form was used by Mozart singly or in pairs in Clemenzo di Tito, Nozze di Figaro, Zauberflöte, Il Seraglio, the Requiem, and in various instrumental works (e.g., K.V. 411). At about 1800 the crescent shape was replaced by a model which was sharply bent at nearly right angles and, somewhat later, it was given a straight form in which it is constructed nowadays. Beethoven used it only in Prometheus, and Mendelssohn wrote two concerted pieces for clarinet and basset-horn with piano (op. 113, 114). Rare modern examples, generally played on the alto clarinet in Eb, are to be found in Salome and Electra of Strauss, in Converse's The Pipe of Desire, and in the Violin Concerto of Roger Sessions. Finally, the clarinetto d'amore might be mentioned, a larger clarinet in G or Ab, with the pear-shaped bell of the oboe d'amore.
7IV. History and Repertory. In early periods and in exotic cultures single-reed instruments are much rarer than double-reed instruments (oboes). Double clarinets (in pairs) were known in ancient Egypt, but scarcely at all in the Far East. To the present day a triple clarinet, called launedda, is used in Sardinia [cf. SaHMI, 91]. A primitive European instrument is the *pibgorn (also called stockhorn, horn-pipe), which was originally made of the shin bone of a sheep, with a part of a cow horn attached as a bell [cf. GD iv, 172; v, 141]. The forerunner proper of the clarinet is the chalumeau [the single-reed type; in addition there also existed a chalumeau with double reed, more properly called *shawm], a small keyless cylindrical pipe. In the 17th century there existed a number of strangely shaped instruments of this type, especially for the bass size [cf. W. Heinitz, Instrumentenkunde (in BüHM), p. 57]. The change from the chalumeau to the clarinet took place between c. 1690 and 1720, owing to the activity of Johann Chr. Denner and his son Johann Denner who added finger keys and a speaker key [cf. SaHMI, 411f]. These early clarinets had the timbre of oboes rather than of the modern clarinet, owing chiefly to the use of small reeds. Thus, Johann Walther says in his Lexicon of 1732 (first mentioning of the name clarinet): "From a distance it sounds rather like a trumpet." This explains the name clarinet [cf. *Clarin trumpet; *Clairon].
9Chalumeaus, whether in their primitive or improved form, were used in Reinhard Keiser's operas Croesus (1711) and Serenata (1716), and are still prescribed in Gluck's Orfeo (1767). Rameau, J. W. Stamitz, and Gossec are the composers associated particularly with the early appearance of the real clarinet in the orchestra. Mozart used it in some of his later symphonies, notably that in Eb (K.V. 543), in which prominent parts covering a wide range are given to the pair of clarinets. From that time, two clarinets are to be found in every normal orchestra. Berlioz was among the first to use various sizes of clarinets for their
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