help instruments

[Doronk]

and the best lower clarinets to use would be alto and bass?

not basset horn, seeing that it's already pitched in F?

[jsnfmn]

Just ran across this while looking for some info unrelated to this thread:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CRVAi2 ... #PPA146,M1

The text right under the photo of the Cimbasso:

...Mendelssohn scored for the Ophicleide...with corno basso in the Ouverture fur Harmoniemusik (pre 1830) and corno di basso in Trauermarsch (1836) - both upright serpents in music for wind band.

[steltz]

If your players have access to basset horns, then by all means, use them, because there will be no transposition involved. However, I have yet to come across a wind band where players have these -- this is usually the domain of orchestras that programme Mozart's Requiem, or opera orchestras who do the Mozart operas that use basset horns. Most individual clarinettists don't buy them because it's too much money to spend for so little repertoire. So it's a question of access to the instruments. However, just about every wind band I have known has had alto and bass clarinets, which is why I think they will be the more available instruments.

As to the reference to corno basso, does anyone know what orchestras normally use these days to substitute for this in Mendelssohn's Ouverture für Harmoniemusik or Trauermarsch?

[jsnfmn]

And I didn't even want to get embroiled in this thread, now I find myself kneedeep. So, I doubt many orchestras take these two Mendelssohn pieces up, as they are both originally for "band." Looking at the Overture for Band up on IMSLP, there are a number of interesting things, besides there being Clarinets in F(!) presumably transposing up giving a super Eb. The Corno Basso here is on the same line as the Contrabassoon, which lends a lot of credence to what the Cambridge Guide is claiming in the link I posted above, that it is some kind of serpent, serpents having been eventually surplanted by contrabassoons once their mechanisms/intonation were improved. No Bassetti here though, just Corni di Bassetto, which here seem to definitely be Basset Horns. My inclination is to say the Bassetti in F are plain old basset horns, and the ones in Bb are some kind of precursor to our current bass clarinet, maybe with an upturned bell like basset horns?

We don't appear to have the Trauermarsch, but now I'll have to check my local music library to see if they have it in case it might shed any light on this.

[Doronk]

I just saw the weirdest thing:
I went on to youtube and found a performance of RK's oboe variations( same instrumentation and trombone concerto)
& there were 6 trombones, 2 SAXOPHONES 3 tUBAS and 3 euphoniums, any Idea how they got these into the score

[audunsj]

According to the preface of the edition, most kindly provided by kalliwoda, the Basset in B is a bass clarinet and the Corno Basso in B is a baritone (euphonium).

[steltz]

Thank you, audunsj and kalliwoda! This has been an extremely interesting excursion!

[jsnfmn]

The Baritone is probably the closest modern equivalent to the Corno Basso and what is used today when the piece is played, but what we know as a baritone today is almost certainly not what R-K was asking for, since it did not exist in that form when he wrote the piece, the closest instrument he might have known about would have been one of the Saxhorns which were the precursors to the Baritone, Euphonium, Alto Horn and Tuba that we know today, though as far as I know, R-K never used Saxhorns.

However, I have found what is probably a description of the instrument we are looking for. I am thinking of scanning the English translation Richard Hofmann's "Practical Instrumentation" for IMSLP, and was browsing through the brass section and found this:

The Bass-horn

Known as the English bass-horn, resembles the bassoon. Its body was of wood, with brass bell. Between the body and the bell rose an S from the chief tube, into which a mouth-piece was inserted like that of the trombone, made from ivory or horn. In the body were 6 holes over which were keys. Its compass was [Bb below the bass clef staff to F above] the notes sounding as written. Its tone was powerful but rather dull and penetrating. Scales with many sharps or flats were difficult, as were rapid passages. The instrument was used chiefly in military bands to strengthen the bass. It vanished when the ophicleid and bombardon appeared.

[jsnfmn]

Also, for anyone still interested in this, on the Bass Horn and its evolution from the Russian Bassoon:

http://hdl.handle.net/1802/6220

Pages 17-18.

[worzel]

In an Italian reed organ 'bassotti' is a rank of pipes controlled by a particular stop. In the very famous organ by Della Ciaia in the Convent Church of Santo Stefano, known as the Chiesa dei Cavalieri in Pisa, I think you would say that these 8' pipes are open and made in chestnut.