1750–1800

The clarinet's full and penetrating sound made it a popular choice for outdoor ensembles and bands; to realise just how popular, one need only glance at the Harmonie listings in the first edition of Whistling's Handbuch der Musikalischen Literatur, which devotes several pages to works for wind band published before 1816. Its uniquely controllable volume made it equally useful for the chamber or concert hall. While the Mannheim court orchestra was not the first to adopt the clarinet as an essential instrument, the orchestra's high standard of performance and its resultant good reputation played a vital part in the adoption of the instrument elsewhere. The repertoire of the instrument's first century included many concertos designed to display its capabilities. In its early days, concertos and orchestral works mainly utilised the clarinet register and the notes immediately above it; the clarinet parts in Abel's Symphony Op. VII/6 (formerly attributed to Mozart as K18) are typical and seldom venture below the throat notes in either part.

Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Mozart's publisher and a popular composer in his own right, wrote concertos, sonatas and pieces for various wind ensembles. While (as is probably true of many composers whose lists of works number hundreds rather than dozens) he could not be accused of originality, his music is competently written, agreeable to play and comfortable for audiences. There are moments of genuine quality; one feels that he scarcely deserves Fétis's unkind comment ‘O, sterile fécondité!’

Introduction

Listen to almost any performance from the first decade of recorded jazz and you will hear the sound of the clarinet. Whether you choose to listen to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB), the King Oliver/Louis Armstrong recordings or Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers, you will hear every ensemble topped by upper-register clarinet, playing in harmony above the melody.

All the evidence about the origins of jazz points to the music having developed from vocal performances. Undoubtedly field hollers, work songs, religious music and the famous post-1817 New Orleans Congo Square dances were all part of the picture, as far as vocal music was concerned. After the end of the Civil War in 1865 the New Orleans blacks were able gradually to acquire the instruments of the military band, including the clarinet. Military (marching) bands were important in all-French settlements, and in New Orleans most of the early jazz players started their careers in such wind bands, playing marches, polkas, quadrilles and so on. From these two sources – the vocal folk/dance music and the marching band – it is quite easy to understand how the five- or six-piece jazz bands evolved. Of course the evolution of jazz included the influence of many other musical styles, ranging from Ragtime and Klezmer to the Chopin waltzes from which stride piano (with its ‘striding’ left hand of a bass note on beats 1 and 3 and a chord on beats 2 and 4) was probably derived.

Introduction

Recordings of clarinettists made at various times during the last hundred years or so chart some fascinating changes in attitudes to musical interpretation and offer an important glimpse into different national styles of playing. It is to these two main areas that this chapter will be primarily addressed, since in any event there can be no attempt to survey all currently available material within the confines of the space available.

Historic recordings have recently become the subject of much interest, and the evidence of performances on each of the various orchestral instruments through the twentieth century is indeed highly instructive in terms of performance styles. One writer has observed ‘… a trend towards greater power, firmness, clarity, control, literalness, and evenness of expression, and away from informality, looseness, and unpredictability’. Most recorded performances from the earlier part of the century give a vivid sense of being projected as if to an audience, the precision and clarity of each note less important than the shape and progress of the music as a whole. In the late twentieth century the balance has shifted significantly, so that accurate and clear performance of the music has become the first priority and the characterisation of the music is assumed to be able to take care of itself. If pre-war recordings resemble live performance, many of today's concerts show a palpable influence of the recording session, with clarity and control an overriding priority.

No other instrument can lay claim to quite such a large and diverse family as the clarinet (Fig. 3.1), and even the player's basic equipment of a pair of instruments serves to distinguish him from other instrumentalists. The B♭ clarinet has reigned supreme for some 200 years, even though Mozart, Brahms and a host of other writers of orchestral and chamber music have ensured that the A clarinet also remains absolutely indispensable. Almost as familiar within the orchestra are the E♭ and bass, whilst the basset horn has a further specialist role, notably in the works of Mozart and Richard Strauss. The scope of even this select group of closely related instruments is unmatched by any other woodwind category, though in fact the clarinet family extends a great deal further – to as many as twenty-five different instruments. The tiniest is the scarcely known clarinet in high C, more than an octave higher than the normal clarinet; in increasing order of size there are then piccolo, sopranino, soprano, alto and bass clarinets ranging down to the B♭ contrabass. Least familiar are perhaps those clarinets smaller in size than the E♭, though there are also some shadowy larger representatives, such as the clarinettes d'amour in A♭ and G (pitched just below the normal A clarinet) from the latter half of the eighteenth century. An especially significant member of the family is the soprano C clarinet, the only one sounding at written pitch, whose prominent role within the repertoire positively demands its widespread revival.

Introduction

Today's young musician is growing up in a social and musical world considerably different from even the recent past. The methods and theories of such music educators as Carl Orff, R. Murray Schafer, John Paynter and Keith Swanwick have become widely known and assimilated (if, perhaps, unconsciously) and the more recent emergence of examinations which engage the student in original composition (as well as performing and ‘listening’) has produced a new generation of young musicians more creative in their thought, more emotionally mature and more vividly aware of their surroundings – they are, to use the contemporary term, more ‘street-wise’. Our pupils are no longer to be seen as receptacles into which we ‘drop’ information – and thus we must acknowledge that the role of the teacher ‘is transformed from that of musical “director” to that of pupil facilitator: stimulating, questioning, advising and helping, rather than showing or telling’. We live in times of change and development, fin-du-siècle is a period of rethinking and innovation. It is in this spirit that we consider the various facets of clarinet teaching in the following pages.

The teacher

As instrumental teachers we are concerned with two distinct but interrelated disciplines. On the one hand, we must teach our pupils the skills necessary to play their instruments to the best of their abilities, and on the other, we must help them to develop their sense of artistry and musicianship. Drawing from students that subtle ability to communicate something of their innermost self through the medium of musical performance is simultaneously a most demanding and stimulating challenge. Without musical 'personality' performances will remain uninspired and the central message which music communicates is lost.

Introduction

The clarinet may be defined as a woodwind instrument with a predominantly cylindrical bore and a single reed that overblows at the twelfth. The term ‘woodwind’ does not preclude the instrument being made of a material other than wood; indeed, at least one of the few surviving very early clarinets is made of ivory. As regards overblowing at the twelfth, the assumption that one can use identical fingering in the chalumeau and clarinet registers has rather less validity on earlier clarinets than modern ones. With these reservations, the clarinet can be traced back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it is generally believed to have been invented by Johann Christoph Denner in Nuremberg, as outlined in Chapter 1. Instruction tutors for the clarinet go back more than 200 years, and almost from the beginning the tutor has normally opened with a brief history of the instrument. Originally this was not regarded as having much importance, nor are these brief histories very reliable. My presumption in this chapter is that it will be read by people interested in how the clarinet they know today evolved, or in playing or listening to earlier clarinets, and I will bypass aspects of the history of the instrument that seem to me less interesting from this point of view. This is a major restriction, because many of the fascinating and ingenious inventions that have been applied to the clarinet seem to have had no significant effect either at the time, or subsequently.

Introduction

The remarkable and eventful history of the clarinet continues to prove an endless source of fascination amongst players and listeners alike. A wealth of new research relating to the clarinet's origins and development has been stimulated by an increasing recognition that historical instruments and performance practices have a great deal to teach us about both the art and craft of music. The earliest years of any instrument's life inevitably reveal varied patterns of acceptance, and only gradually is any coherent picture of the early eighteenth-century clarinet beginning to emerge. However, any lingering doubts about the clarinet's vigorous career in the two generations before Mozart's birth have now at last been conclusively laid to rest.

It is the special acoustical make-up of the clarinet which seems to account for many particular features of its history. For example, during the first half century of its life it really existed as two instruments; the essence of the baroque clarinet was its upper register, whereas its close relative the chalumeau was restricted to a range of a twelfth in its fundamental register. Only during the classical period did it become possible to manufacture an instrument in which both registers were relatively satisfactory and in tune. Although the baroque clarinet engaged some important composers such as Handel and Vivaldi, the repertoire for chalumeau is actually much more wide ranging in scope and deserves to be far better known.

Why is the clarinet such a popular instrument among contemporary composers? Is it that, as a social group, clarinettists combine intellect, industry and experimentation with a happy disposition? Well, this may be a contributing factor, but a rather more probable hypothesis is that the instrument itself combines flexibility with a tonal palette ranging from woody, chuckling cosiness to seering, ear-splitting intensity. It is the clarinet's expressiveness, agility and richness of tone which has attracted composers and has led to the many close associations between composer and performer: a tradition which has resulted in the wealth of concertos and chamber music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries discussed in Chapter 5.

In the twentieth century this composer-player teamwork has blossomed, particularly in the post-Second World War period. Experimenting and researching together, composers have written pieces which could not have existed without the specific talents of certain instrumentalists. Each has influenced the other as the range of pitch and colour has been extended, multiphonics discovered and exploited, microtones played on orchestral instruments not built for them, circular breathing rediscovered, percussive, air and simultaneous vocal sounds all brought together to broaden the spectrum of sound possibilities.

The language and style of new music has become much more familiar to audiences during the last fifteen years or so and music by living composers is beginning to appear regularly in mainstream concert programming and recording. More performers are actively involved in playing new music alongside traditional repertoire and it is no longer a minority interest appealing only to the specialist. That's the good news. The bad news is that there is still an astonishing reluctance among many young players to play music written by living composers.

Introduction

I was given my first clarinet by my parents as a Christmas present, when I was nine years old. I remember taking it out of its case, and putting it together for the first time. The smell of the second-hand instrument was a particular delight – a sort of musty, oiled-wood smell, which went well with the sound I imagined it should have. We passed it around the family, everyone taking turns to try to get a tune out of it, and I was soon pleased to be able to do better than the others. It was mine, and I fell in love with it.

When I went to my very first teacher, Wilfred Kealey, he started to talk to me about music, and suggested ways of thinking which weren't directly related to the instrument, or even to the details of what I myself did. One thing which stuck in my mind was that I should imagine the clarinet sound as a smooth, round tube, which should begin deep inside me and stretch out through, and beyond, the bell of the instrument. It was my first encounter with a playing metaphor.

When we begin to play, we do think of the clarinet very much as an object – a very special object, perhaps, but nevertheless an object. It is an object that we must try to persuade to do what we want it to, and which often seems to resist us. So we are in the business of doing the right something to it in order to play well.

Introduction

Whatever their preferred course at the outset, musicians these days are best equipped if they can apply themselves to several related trades. Playing a wind instrument can offer a most satisfying professional life combining orchestral work, solo playing, chamber music and teaching, but performers often end up diversifying in all sorts of directions. Examiners, lecturers, recording artists and producers, conductors, composers, businessmen, arrangers, authors, consultants, administrators in education or artistic managers – I can think of at least one clarinettist who has become each of these! Competition for rare orchestral vacancies is intense, whilst only one or two professional clarinettists in Britain can honestly say that they earn a living from playing solo and chamber music. There are, however, hundreds of players throughout the country who teach and many who play occasionally, if only in local amateur orchestras, bands or jazz groups. This has not always been the case. Between 1890 and 1900 the number of listed clarinettists in London increased tenfold, suggesting there was a time when the instrument was not as popular as it is today. Nowadays there is a flourishing market of freelance players supplying a large number of the capital's ad hoc orchestras and ensembles. Despite the risks of being a musician, it seems that playing the instrument for a living has never been so popular.

Spinoza is a metaphysician. I emphasize this fact here (and in my title) because one can discover what is most exciting and important about Spinoza's psychology only by seeing it as emerging from his metaphysics. Spinoza is a systematic philosopher and nowhere is his system more ambitious and under more strain than in his attempt to derive an account of human motivation, affects, and other mental states from his general metaphysics.

This project of deriving psychology from metaphysics stems from Spinoza’s guiding belief in naturalism about human beings - a belief he famously expresses as the view that man in nature is not a kingdom within a kingdom (E 3pr). For Spinoza, the principles at work throughout nature in general also govern human psychology. The clearest statement of his view occurs in the Preface to Part 3 of the Ethics:

introduction

By the 1870s the majority of the newly independent Latin American countries appeared—to greater or less degree—to be on the road to social and political stability. Relative economic prosperity resulting from Latin America’s accelerated integration into world economy and the arrival of thousands of immigrants from all over the world, but above all from Europe (especially the Mediterranean basin), had at least two important consequences for Latin American architecture. First, it brought skilled labour that was quite different from the local workmanship that had sufficed until then; secondly, a new acculturation on a global scale meant exposure to styles and sensibilities distinct from those which had prevaileduntil then. Between the 1870s and the 1920s governments and the new rising bourgeoisie used architecture as one of the most visible means of giving themselves an aura of respectability, and they did so by imitating European and North American models.

During this period neo-classicism—refined or popular, as it was handled by masons steeped in the millennarian formulas of the Old World—began to disappear, giving way to eclectic designs typical of the nineteenth century: neo-romanesque or neo-gothic, Italian Renaissance, Beaux-Arts, or simply the picturesque styles of the European countryside: Andalusian, Basque, Norman, Swiss or English, appropriated for suburban residences or homes built in the mountains or at the beach. An ingenious mechanism then came into play: obligatory styles for various types of buildings. Thus, for example, the ‘Roman’ (with the addition of a cupola) lends itself to legislative palaces, and the ‘Italian’ or the ‘French’ (complete with mansard roof in tropical climates) is required for most public structures or for private buildings that lay claim to a certain degree of nobility.

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza's life is usually summarized in a few lines, as follows. He was born in 1632 in Amsterdam as a son of Jewish Marrano immigrants from Portugal. After having been educated as a Jew, he was excommunicated in 1656. While earning his livelihood, first by commerce and later by grinding lenses, he learned Latin in the school of Franciscus van den Enden and conversed with a circle of Amsterdam Collegiants, who were dedicated to Cartesianism. He lived in Rijnsburg near Leiden (1660-3), in Voorburg near The Hague (1663-70), and in The Hague (1670 onward). He published in 1663 under his own name Descartes's “Principles of Philosophy”[Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae, Pars I et II, More Geometrico demonstratae), and anonymously in 1670 the Theological-Political Treatise (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus). After his death (February 21, 1677) his Opera Posthuma - containing in Latin his main work the Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (Ethica, Or dine Geometrico demonstrata), the Correspondence (Epistulae) , the unfinished Political Treatise (Tractatus Politicus , the unfinished Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione), and a Compendium of Hebrew Grammar (Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae) - was published by his friends. They also produced a Dutch translation of the Opera Posthuma (without the Hebrew Grammar), called De Nagelate Schriften, in the same year. An early forerunner of the Ethics, in Dutch and entitled Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being (Korte Verhandeling van God, de Mensch en des zelfs Welstand), was discovered and published in the nineteenth century. Spinoza was a seventeenth-century rationalist philosopher much decried on account of his atheism.

the multiverse of latin american identity, c. 1920 — c. 1970

A deeply imaginative reflection on the character of cultural expression in the Americas, presented by historical eras, is La expresión amerkana by the noted Cuban writer Jose Lezama Lima, first published in Havana in 1957. The sole critical edition is the Portuguese version, A expressāo amerkana (Sao Paulo, 1988), translated with a highly competent introduction and notes by Irlemar Chiampi. In his essays ’Visión de América’ and ’Conciencia e identidade de America’ in La novela latinoamerkana en visperas de un nuevo siglo (Mexico, D.F., 1981), 59-158, Alejo Carpentier addressed continental Americanism. Leopoldo Zea expands the barbarism-civilization theme to global proportions in Discurso desde la marginación y la barbarie (Barcelona, 1988). See also his Filosofia de la bistoria amerkana (Mexico, D.F., 1978). The role of intellectuals is examined in Juan F. Marsal (ed.), El intelectual latinoamerkano (Buenos Aires, 1970).

Studies of Latin American thought include two classics by the Spanish philosopher Jose Gaos, El pensamiento hispanoamericano (Mexico, D.F., 1944) and Pensamiento de lengua española (Mexico, D.F., 1945). Gaos’s Mexican disciple Leopoldo Zea produced a volume which, although controversial, remains seminal for the nineteenth century: The Latin-American Mind, trans. J. H. Abbott and L. Dunham (Norman, Okla., 1963). See also Harold Eugene Davis, Latin American Thought: A Historical Introduction, 2nd ed. (New York, 1974); and W. Rex Crawford, A Century of Latin- American Thought, rev. ed. (New York, 1966).