A Guide to the Operatic Bass Clarinet Repertoire
1836 – 1920
When Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) wrote Les Huguenots in 1836, he became the first composer to use the bass clarinet in the operatic orchestra. In this work, the instrument sits outside of the corps of woodwinds, serving a similar role to that of the saxophone in today’s symphony orchestra: an outlier, a soloistic voice added for its unique color. In the decades that followed, the bass clarinet transformed from an oddity to a familiar friend– an integral part of the woodwind chorus as we understand it today. This change was also reflected in operatic parts for the bass clarinet.
Due to the dramatic nature of opera, the bass clarinet also found its voice in terms of topoi within the operatic orchestra. Topoi (singular– topos) are musical topics, but we can think of them as the extramusical things we associate with each instrument, such as the outdoorsy sound of a horn call or the militaristic sounds of a trumpet fanfare. These topoi are not the same for every instrument in every situation, but we might have general feelings about what an instrument “should be” used for and the non-musical people, places, or things it might represent. Consider, if you were writing your own version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, would you use the tuba to represent Queen Mab? Probably not, unless you were making a musical joke. Music itself can also have a topos, such as a falling motive to represent crying, or a rhythm that mimics a train. The word topoi and its usage here comes from Leonard Ratner’s Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style. You can also read more about it in Raymond Monelle’s The Musical Topic. Musical topics are key to understanding the complexities of instrumental art music; without them, we can hear the beauty but not the meaning. Some are obvious and some are built on decades, if not centuries, of musical practice. The bass clarinet, having been created after the advent of grand opera, was quickly given opportunities to find its characteristic niches in the world of topoi.
Each page of this guide features links to the original bass clarinet parts, an annotated part with my own musical suggestions, videos of operatic productions, historical and organological background information, and videos of myself performing and explaining important excerpts.
The goal of this project is to serve as a public resource for young artists who likely have some experience with opera and some experience with the bass clarinet but have not yet delved into the operatic bass clarinet repertoire. For now, the project is limited to works within the public domain.
If you would like to see a particular opera added to this project, please use the Contact page to request it. I plan to continue adding to this project so that it becomes a core resource for performers and teachers of the bass clarinet.
