Bass Clarinet - Notation

Notation

Orchestral music for bass clarinet is written using one of two systems:

• (a) Conventional treble clef in B♭. This sounds an octave and a major second lower than written and therefore uses the same fingerings as the soprano clarinet, and is by far the more common of the two.
• (b) Bass clef in B♭. This sounds a major second (tone, or whole step) lower than written. The player must, of course, be able to read bass clef. For music written in bass clef, higher passages may be written in treble clef to avoid the use of excessive ledger lines, but this should not be confused with system (a), in which notes sound an octave lower than in system (b). Unlike music for the bassoon, the tenor clef is not used for higher passages.

Music is occasionally encountered written for the bass clarinet in A, e.g. in Wagner operas, and Mahler or Rachmaninov symphonies; this music also tends to be written in bass clef although not invariably (e.g. Ravel's La Valse). Apparently, bass clarinets in A were once produced by German and French makers, even though the historic record is not particularly clear just where and when such production started and ceased. Since instruments pitched in A were not available to play music that had already been written, bass clarinets produced after 1900 were equipped with the low Eb extension key to allow easy transposition of such parts.

Until the last half of the 20th century, no new bass clarinets pitched in A were produced. For a brief period starting in the late 1970s, a bass clarinet with Boehm style keywork and pitched in A (and keyed to low Eb, even though the original parts seldom descend below written low E) was again produced by Selmer Paris. While perfectly functional, such instruments were both expensive and a significant physical burden to the player, who would have to carry two heavy bass clarinets to rehearsals and performances. For these two reasons more than anything else, few modern bass clarinets in A have been sold. At some point after the 1980s, Selmer ceased production of the bass clarinet in A, although examples are still available from factory stock.

Very few modern players own a bass clarinet in A; these parts are therefore played on the B♭ instrument, transposing them down a semitone.