Music for the Baroque Clarinet

This chapter presents an overview of music written by 23 composers representative of a larger repertoire written about 1715 to 1760 for the Baroque clarinet. The works examined include opera, cantata, duos, concertos, wedding music, chamber music, military music, sacred arias, requiem, and motets by Dreux, Vivaldi, Caldara, Faber, Telemann, Handel, Chinzer, Rathgeber, Münster, Glaser, Kölbel, Molter, Sparry, Rameau, Zach, Stark, Johann Stamitz, Graupner, d’Herbain, Pasterwiz, La Borde, Ulbrecht, and Arne. The music is written in a trumpet style characterized by repeated notes, incomplete arpeggios, fanfare motives, limited range, and restricted use of the low register. In works composed after about 1730, a lyrical style of melodic writing takes on a greater importance with scale passages, leaps of an octave or more, and more frequent use of the low register.

The Earliest Clarinets

The makers, design, construction, and origin of the Baroque clarinet are discussed in this chapter. Two tables list chronologically all extant two- and three-key clarinets by country, and include maker, and city when known, maker’s dates, date of clarinet, number of clarinets, nominal pitch, and collection. There are 36 two-key and 22 three-key clarinets, made in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Czech Republic, France, Sweden, and Finland. The earliest documentation for the invention of the clarinet is reviewed, and how and why Johann Christoph Denner improved the chalumeau and invented the clarinet is proposed, on the basis of previous studies of mechanical inventions. Biographies are provided for each clarinet maker when information was found.

Playing Techniques of the Baroque Clarinet

This chapter discusses the earliest published sources on playing the two- and three-key clarinets written by Majer (1732), Eisel (1738), Berg (1782), and an anonymous writer (ca. 1810). The topics covered by these authors are compass, reed position, embouchure, articulation, hand position, fingerings, clefs, and makers’ stamps. Other authors cited who write about the clarinet are Walther (1732), Diderot and d’Alembert (1753), Roeser (1764), Miklin’s letter to Hülphers (1772), Vanderhagen (1785), Lefèvre (1802), Backofen (ca. 1803), Fröhlich (1811–1812), and Willman (1826). A mezzotint (ca. 1750–1760) by Johann Elias Ridinger illustrates a carefully drawn three-key clarinet with details of construction and a player using a contemporary fingering. Birsak’s (1973) observations on the tuning and pitch of some Baroque clarinets are discussed.

Music for the Chalumeau

Chapter 2 provides an overview of chalumeau music written from 1694 to 1780. Seventeen works are discussed that represent the large chalumeau repertoire: opera, oratorio, cantata, psalm, concerto, stage, chamber, and orchestral. The chalumeau was prominently used in European courts, schools, and concerts in Vienna, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Venice, Prague, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Liechtenstein, Frankfurt, London, Darmstadt, Zerbst, Eisenstadt, Dresden, and other cities, and in monasteries at Göttweig in Austria, and Osek and Lubens in Poland. Chalumeaux were made in five sizes: soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and basset bass (extended range bass). Soprano and bass chalumeaux were used in Vienna by several composers; soprano chalumeaux in Amsterdam by Dreux; alto, tenor, and bass chalumeaux by Graupner and Telemann in Darmstadt, Hamburg, and Frankfurt; and basset bass by Steffani in Düsseldorf and Pichler in Göttweig.

Origins of the Chalumeau

Chapter 1 describes the basic construction of the chalumeau and discusses its ancestors in Egyptian antiquity and from the tenth through the 17th centuries; the mock trumpet; chalumeaux during the 17th and 18th centuries; Jacob Denner’s chalumeaux and clarinets revealed in archival sources and three surviving two-key clarinets; an organ pipe that sounds like a chalumeau; chalumeau players; chalumeau descriptions from the mid-18th century; later documented chalumeau makers; and chalumeau reproductions. Ten surviving chalumeaux are described in detail and biographical information is presented on seven makers. Individual players are identified when playing specific musical works, and the chalumeau size as required in the music. Late-19th- and early-20th-century reproductions of chalumeaux and their makers are identified.

Baroque Clarinet in Society

The evidence for the acceptance and use of the Baroque clarinet in 18th-century society is discussed: in iconographical representations (engravings, paintings, etchings, mezzotints, stucco); by traveling musicians (August Freudenfeld, Francis Rosenberg, Mr. Charles); in court and aristocratic music (Stuttgart, Rastaat, Koblenz, Merseburg, Berleburg, Gotha, Karlsruhe, Mainz, Rudolstadt, Cologne, Paris, Olmütz, Darmstadt, Würzburg, Zweibrücken); in church and civic music (Nuremberg, Venice, Antwerp, Kremsmünster, Greiz, Kempten, London, Frankfurt, Salzburg, Schlosshof, Marienberg); and military music (Rastatt, London, New York, Paris, Stockholm, Salzburg). Newspaper advertisements include clarinet concerts; archival documents indicate the dates of clarinetists in court and monastery orchestras, and clarinets purchased by aristocrats and courts.