The Bass Clarinet as a Solo Instrument

The bass clarinet has occupied a number of roles since its inception in the mid-eighteenth century. It was originally meant to replace the bassoon in military bands, but was quickly adopted by many opera composers - most notably Wagner - after being featured in Giacomo Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (1836). Since then it has also become a fixture of the symphony orchestra, having been used extensively by composers such as Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, and Dmitri Shostakovich. Despite its popularity, however, the bass clarinet had very little solo repertoire for most of its history. In fact, it wasn't until the mid-twentieth century when the bass clarinet started being treated seriously as a solo instrument; so recent is this development that we can trace the exact date of the very first bass clarinet solo recital, which was held on March 24, 1955 by Czech bass clarinetist Josef Horák (1931-2005). Since then, the bass clarinet has been championed by other virtuosi such as Harry Sparnaay (1944-2017) and Henri Bok (b. 1950), and hundreds of solo works have been written for the instrument. Three will be examined below: Salamander, by Wayne Siegel; The People of This Place, by Felicity Wilcox; and Ophelia's Tears, by Nicolas Bacri.

Wayne Siegel, in Salamander for bass clarinet and electronics (2019), uses the bass clarinet's massive pitch range to evoke the different characters present throughout the work. Originally written for baritone saxophone, the piece was inspired by the various behaviors exhibited by salamanders in the wild, which range from relaxed sunbathing near the water's edge to suddenly diving beneath its surface. The bass clarinet's various registers are used to illustrate these contrasting behaviors, with the "throat tones" and upper register being featured in the piece's slow, trance-like opening and closing sections, and the low register being heavily used during the faster, quirkier middle section.

 

The People of this Place (2016) was composed by Australian composer Felicity Wilcox in collaboration with clarinetist Jason Noble. According to the composer, the piece "reflects my experience as a woman from the greater Sydney region living with an awareness that I live and work on unceded Aboriginal lands. I chose the bass clarinet for its enormous range and ability to evoke different sound worlds on one instrument and within one piece." The "sound worlds" the composer mentions are created using a number of different extended techniques, including harmonic glissando, slap tongue, air sounds, and key clicks.

Ophelia's Tears (2020) was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and dedicated to their longtime bass clarinetist, J. Lawrie Bloom, who gave the piece's premiere on February 20-23, 2020. The composer, Nicolas Bacri, drew inspiration from the character of Ophelia from Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the lover of the titular protagonist who ultimately descends into madness before dying by drowning. Bacri describes the work as a "Concertante Elegy" with three interconnected sections. While the piece does not demand virtuoso finger technique, it still requires a great deal of control over the bass clarinet's different registers.