Introduction

No other instrument can lay claim to quite such a large and diverse family as the clarinet and even the orchestral player's basic equipment of a pair of instruments serves to distinguish him from other instrumentalists. The Boehm-system clarinet exists in as many as twenty-five different types and sizes. The tiniest is the scarcely known clarinet in high C, more than an octave higher than the instruments in common use; in increasing order of size there are then piccolo, sopranino, soprano, alto and bass clarinets ranging down to the B♭ contrabass. Least familiar are perhaps those clarinets smaller in size than the E♭, though there have also been some shadowy larger representatives, such as the clarinettes d'amour in A♭ and G (pitched just below the normal A clarinet) from the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Special projects: high clarinets

The byways of clarinet repertory involve a variety of rare instruments. For example, the stage band in Verdi's La traviata finds a rare appearance of the tiny A♭ clarinet in mainstream art music. A solo project involving the closely related clarinet in high G might be a recreation of the so-called Schrammelquartett, an ensemble much admired by Richard Strauss, Brahms and Hans Richter. Active in the 1880s, this group consisted of two violins (the Schrammel brothers), bass guitar and G clarinet. It was recreated in the mid-1960s, following discovery of the autographs of the waltzes and polkas which formed its core repertory.