Low Clarinet

The low clarinet is a Clarinette sounding exactly with the lower octave of the clarinet in Sib whose origin goes back to second half of the 19th century.

It has the same characteristics of register as the clarinet in Sib :

the blowtorch (serious), stamped, hot and fluid.
the second register (medium), a little deaf person.
the bugle (acute), register very singing.
the last register (overshrill), rather yelling and distressed.

The low clarinet is capable of an extreme softness in the nuances, and of this fact is very used in the orchestral music when that it sagit to carry out the low discrete ones, counterpoints of second plan or of the funds. This is why its stamp passes often a little unperceived.

It is also an instrument used by the clarinettists of Jazz, like Michel Portal, Louis Sclavis or Eric Dolphy which often makes of it their second instrument of predilection.

Description and technique

The technique of the low clarinet is almost similar to that of the clarinet in sib, with that close its extent is an octave in lower part. One finds nevertheless a difference in the fact that all the low clarinets have a serious key of MIB (= Réb in C) and that some go down, by an addition of key, with serious C (= sib in C).

The technique of the low clarinet is more complex than that of the ordinary clarinet so much so that with the orchestra one is obliged to call upon specialists in the instrument.

The low clarinet is an instrument says transposing instrument. I.e. the played sound is not that heard: When the instrumentalist plays a tact of, the listener hears

The low clarinet thus transposes one 9th major in lower part of the corresponding tact.

The low clarinet in

There existed, in particular in Germany, of the low clarinets in. These instruments advantageously replaced the low clarinet in B flat to interpret parts in tonalities with sharps. Thus, in a part in the major one, where 3 sharps are with the key, rather than to assign of them 5 with the low clarinet in Sib, the use of a low clarinet in made it possible to reduce the number of deteriorations and to facilitate the play of the musician (who played then in major C). The low clarinet in was also the only one to reach the So serious one, since it sounded a semitone below her colleague in Sib.

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