BASS CLARINET (Fr. clarinette basse; Ger. Bass-Klarinette; Ital. darinetto basso or clarone)

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 491 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BAR-BEC

BASS CLARINET (Fr. clarinette basse; Ger. Bass-Klarinette; Ital. darinetto basso or clarone) , practically the A, Bb or C clarinet speaking an octave lower; what therefore has been said concerning the fingering, transposition, acoustic properties and general history of the clarinet (q.v.) also applies to the

bass

clarinet. Owing to its greater length the form of the

bass

clarinet differs from that of the clarinets in that the bell

joint

JOINT (through Fr. from Lat. junctum, jungere, to join)

is bent up in front of the

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

, terminating in a large gloxinea-shaped bell, and that the mouthpiece is attached by means of a strong ligature and screws to a serpent-shaped crook of brass or silver. The compass of the modern orchestral bass clarinet is in the main the same as that of the higher clarinets in C, Bb and A, but an octave lower, and therefore for the bass clarinet
in C is t ; for the bass clarinet in Bb the real sounds
ace one tone, and for the bass clarinet in A IZ tone lower, although the notation is the same for all three.
Sometimes the treble def is used in notation for the bass clarinet. It must then be understood that the

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

in C speaks an491
octave lower, the bass clarinet in Bb a'major ninth and the bass clarinet in A a

minor

tenth lower. The tenor clef is also frequently used in orchestral works.
The quality of tone is less reedy in the bass clarinet than in the higher

instruments

INSTRUMENTS

. It resembles the bourdon stop on the organ, and in the lowest register, more especially, the tone is somewhat hollow and wanting in power although mellower than that of the bassoon. In the lowest octave the instrument speaks slowly and is chiefly used. for sustained bass or melody notes; rapid passages are impossible.
The modern orchestral model may be fitted with almost every kind of key-mechanism, including the Boehm, and the degree of perfection and ingenuity attained has removed the all but insuperable difficulties which stood in the way of the

original

ORIGINAL

inventors who, not understanding key-

work

WORK

, made many futile attempts to bridge the necessarily

great

GREAT

distance between the

finger

FINGER

-holes by making the bore serpentine, boring the holes obliquely, &c.
The low pitch of the bass clarinet (8 ft. tone) contrasted with the moderate length of the instrumentwhose bore

measures

MEASURES

only some 42 to 43 inches from mouthpiece to bell, whereas that of the bassoon, an instrument of the same pitch, is twice that lengthis a puzzle to many. An explanation of the fact is to be found in the peculiar acoustic properties of the cylindrical tube played by means of a reed mouthpiece characterizing the clarinet family, which acts as a closed pipe speaking an octave lower than an open pipe of the same length, and overblowing a twelfth instead. of an octave. This is more fully explained in the articles

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