"Romantic expression emerged as an urgent desire and need in music at the beginning of the nineteenth century and introduced sweeping changes and innovations into all the areas constituting the general field of music.
"The chromatic extension of harmony and melody gradually moved out toward the limits of tonality and necessarily sped up the technical development of the orchestral instrumentarium, especially of the family of wind instruments. The expansion of form, larger dynamic ambitus, and increasing importance of the rhythmic element also required the continuous expansion of the orchestra. This tendency finally culminated in the mingling of new tone colors with the extended tone masses.
"Mozart's quest for such new tone colors had led him to discover the beauty of the low clarinet registers. He introduced the basset horn, a variant of the alto clarinet, into some of his works. Thus it is not surprising that the romantic period witnessed the addition of a bass instrument to the clarinet family, the youngest of the orchestral wind groups. The bass instruments constructed in French, German, Italian, and Belgian workshops during those years (often independently of each other!) today remind us not so much of bass clarinets proper as of the primitive musical implements of indigenous peoples.
"The initial design of the bass clarinet, with its bent, doubled wooden tube reminiscent of the bassoon or tangled windings, was nothing short of a monstrosity. Its design notwithstanding, the early bass clarinet was distinguished by a tonal magic that earned it the name of glicibarifono, 'sweet-deep-toner.' The Belgian music scholar Francois Joseph Fétis certified its special tonal qualities at a bass clarinet presentation around 1832, 'At the sight of this huge, downright gigantic instrument most members of the audience believed that they would be hearing harsh and rough tones. Instead they heard full strong, and mellow tones.'
"Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), a great name in the field of the grand opera, was so fond of the melodious sound of the bass clarinet that he assigned the instrument a major recitative in his opera Les Huguenots (1836), the first bass clarinet solo in the whole of music history! During the same period the famous Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax (1814-94) developed a model with an elongated tube form, the immediate precursor of today's bass clarinet, and thus paved the way for the instrument's rapid dissemination. In subsequent years there was hardly an opera composer who did not avail himself of the bass clarinet for the heightening of the mood at the major turning points in the action. Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi employed the bass clarinet to create emphases of the greatest intensity.
"Since the romantic symphonic literature was slower to move away from the traditional orchestral instrumentation, we do not meet with the bass clarinet here until later on. The 'modernists' Berlioz and Liszt, the late romantics, and composers of the twentieth century, however, have fully exploited the tonal diversity of the bass clarinet. Soon its tonal diversity was featured even outside of noble legato passages. The bass clarinet also became in-dispensable in film music. Borrowing on its employment and function in the opera orchestra, the bass clarinet succeeds in heightening even the most electric cinematic suspense.
"The development of the bass clarinet from a successfully integrated orchestral instrument to an emancipated solo instrument was a gradual one. Most compositions for solo bass clarinet date from the decades after 1950. A few isolated works form the only exceptions: August Klughardt's 'Romanze' (ca. 1890), Francois Rasse's 'Song' (1911), and Othmar Schoeck's 'Sonata for Bass Clarinet and Piano op. 41' (1928)." (From the liner notes. Translated by Susan Marie Praeder.)
Performers: Renata Rusche, Berliner Symphoniker, Neil Varon, Stefan Pintev, Rodrigo Reichel, Thomas Oepen, Christoph Groth, Werner Hagen
1. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: I. Gemessen
2. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: II. Bewegt
3. Othmar Schoeck - Sonata, Op. 41: III. Bewegt
4. Olivier Messiaen - 'Abime Des Oiseaux'
5. Frits Celis - 'Da Uno A Cinque', Op. 27: I. Andante Sostenuto - Quasi Berceuse
6. Frits Celis - 'Da Uno A Cinque', Op. 27: II. Molto Agitato - Allegro Con Fuoco - Molto Tranquillo
7. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: I. Moderato
8. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: II. Presto
9. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: III. Intermezzo: Tranquillo
10. Harald Genzmer - Bass Clarinet Sonata: IV. Finale: Vivacissimo, Moderato
11. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: I. Adagio,Vivace
12. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: II. Adante, Quasi Sostenuto
13. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: III. Poco Adagio, Cantabile
14. Dietrich Erdmann - Bass Clarinet Concerto: IV. Allegro Grazioso
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