Bass Clarinet as soloist
- Browse all Bass Clarinet as soloist works
- Browse all CDs featuring Bass Clarinet as soloist
- Browse all artists who have written works for Bass Clarinet as soloist
Australian bass clarinet music
The bass clarinet is known for its dark colours and contrasting effects and is a key figure in Australian contemporary art music. The creation of significant works for the instrument have come from composers that include Michael Smetanin, Liza Lim, Brett Dean, Andrew Ford, Nigel Westlake and Paul Stanhope to name a few. In recent years the landscape has changed with a more diverse range of composers writing for the instrument. This is especially due to the collaboration between the Ngarra Burria First People’s Composers’ program and Ensemble Offspring. For Ngarra Burria, bass clarinettist Jason Noble has mentored the composers to write works that highlight the range of the instrument as well as its dynamics and expressive techniques. Examples of this work can be seen in Bardju by Brenda Gifford, Cumulus by Aaron Wyatt and Zoom Meeting by James Henry.
Representative works
| Work | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Scorn (2002) by Brendan Colbert | An aggressive and virtuosic work for advanced players. |
|
| Sacrifice (1996) by Stephen Cronin | A refined solo piece, based on an excerpt from Igor Stravinsky‘s The Rite of Spring. Sacrifice is an excellent articulation study in its use of fast staccato in the low register. |
|
| Jump (1999) by Robert Davidson | A pleasing work with a meandering, lyrical central section framed by two groovy, 'jumpy' outer sections. The work is good for overcoming the challenges of staccato and legato playing over larger intervals and becoming fluent in the altissimo register fingerings. |
|
| Time (1981) by Chris Dench | Uses the musical idea of a 'cantilena'. Dynamic control and differentiation are of paramount importance in this piece. |
|
| Entr'actes (1982) by Richard David Hames | Uses complex rhythms and a microtonal pitch language. Entr'actes is a highly virtuosic, very expressive piece and almost theatrical in its intent. |
|
| Les roses sanglantes (1990) by Gerard Brophy | 'The bloodied roses‘ is a gorgeous, colourful, yet dark piece for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra. It is one of Brophy's many impressive works for the instrument. |
|
| Malachite glass (1990) by Nigel Westlake | Explores ways of bringing the bass clarinet voice into the percussion ensemble sonority. It is demanding and exposed for the bass, tribal in gesture and evocative – as the title suggests – of caves, earth and malachite glass. |
|
| The Surge: Three Interludes (2021) by Jessica Wells | These movements can be performed as a suite, or as stand-alone works. |
|
| Zoom meeting (2020) by James Henry | The result of an exercise we were given by Chris Sainsbury for Ngarra-Burria, to write a piece with restricted pitch scale. |
|
| Ye Mardy Pipers of Georgianna (2024) by Nicholas Vines | A 5-minute work for clarinet, bass clarinet, virtual ensemble. |
|
| People of this Place (2016) by Felicity Wilcox | Blends Western musical idioms with sonic references to an imagined pre-colonial world, to describe a sense of place around Sydney. |
|
| All hail the machine (2011) by James Ledger | The third in Ledger's series of pieces for solo instrument with live electronics. The idea of 'channel surfing' gives the piece its structure: an idea grows out of static, turning into a full-blown melody before abruptly changing into another idea. |
|
| Entr'Acte I/II (2015) by Christopher Tonkin | This work is in two parts that can be played separately or consecutively. Written for a high-level professional experienced with new repertoire. |
|
| Hectic Tulip (2023) by Damien Ricketson | One in a family of works characterised by rapid interlocking rhythms. |
|
| As small birds play (2011) by Corrina Bonshek | Can be performed with an optional birdcall soundtrack recorded in Carpertee Valley, NSW. Level of difficulty: medium. |
|
| Respiration (2014) by Michael Grebla | A work that describes Ricketson's experience of witnessing Cheyne-Stokes respiration, a type of breathing exhibited by humans and animals close to death. |
|
| Umwelt (2024) by Christine Pan | The piece starts with subtones, mismatched fingerings, false pitches and keyclicks, sonically sounding quite alien. As the piece builds, the gestures, pitches and multiphonics layer on top of another until they carefully result in multiphonic oscillations. |
|
| Fantasy on 'Grey Rocks, Grey Sea' (2011) by Karlin Greenstreet Love | A Celtic-influenced tune with shifting tonal centres, higher range, and counterpoint. |