This past week I got to do something that I haven’t had a chance to do since I was in school. I got to play real chamber music! My co-worker, who is a horn player, put together a chamber music recital with a bunch of us from the band. We played the Trio for Horn, Clarinet and Piano by Carl Reinecke. I had never heard of this composer before, but apparently he’s fairly well known to pianists. He was a piano player himself in the late 19th and early 20th century. And it is quite apparent that he was a pianist that didn’t know a lot about wind instruments…both the clarinet and horn parts are really awkward to play! And the piano part is a monster. Luckily we were able to find a pianist who was able and willing. You can check out the score here on imslp.org.
Speaking of Petrucci library…we didn’t buy the music…nor did we really want to (that stuff is expensive!). And since only the score is online, we had to transcribe the parts ourselves. (There’s viola and violin parts online, but those were composed separately by Reinecke and are not the same as the wind parts – very interesting!) This meant that I had to make some creative decisions…like which clarinet to play it on, because the score is in concert pitch! I ended up going with Bb for all movements except the 2nd movement. The second movement ended up being much easier played on A. I have no idea if that’s what the actual part is, but its what I did!
The music is really nice, its probably one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever played. Despite being awkward to play, it doesn’t sound like it! Its too bad that its not in the standard repertoire. It should be! Its hard to play, but its totally worth it. I went to a wedding last weekend in Colorado, and I actually brought my clarinet with me, and practiced about an hour each day because its the type of music that I had to play through everyday in order to keep up with it.
The recital was great, we had a good audience who really appreciated all the music. I kinda felt like a rock star! Makes me want to do more recitals. We’ll see! I have no time to practice for one right now, with all the work stuff I have to prepare for our summer concerts. Maybe in the fall!
Sandy Herrera, Clarinet 