Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire

Notes for Clarinetists: A Guide to the Repertoire offers important historical and analytical information about thirty-five of the best-known pieces written for the instrument. Numerous contextual and theoretical insights make it an essential resource for professional, amateur, and student clarinetists. With engaging prose supported by fact-filled analytical charts, the book offers rich biographical information and informative analyses to help clarinetists gain a more complete understanding of Three Pieces for Clarinet Solo by Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland's Concerto for Clarinet, String Orchestra, Harp, and Piano, Robert Schumann's Fantasy Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 73. and Time Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 43. by Robert Muczynski, among many others. With close attention to matters of context, style, and harmonic and formal analysis, Albert Rice explores a significant portion of the repertoire, and offers a faithful and comprehensive guide that includes works by Boulez, Brahms, and Mozart to Hindemith, Poulenc, and Stamitz. Rice includes biographical information on each composer and highlights history's impact on the creation and performance of important works for clarinet. Intended as a starting point for connecting performance studies with scholarship, Rice's analysis will help clarinetists gain a more complete picture of a given work. Its valuable insights make it essential to musicians preparing and presenting programs, and its detailed historical information about the work and composer will encourage readers to explore other works in a similarly analytical way. Covering concertos, chamber pieces, and works for solo clarinet, Rice presents Notes for Clarinetists as an indispensable handbook for students and professionals alike.

About the Author :
Albert R. Rice holds a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University. He is a clarinetist, author, researcher, appraiser of musical instruments, past president of the American Musical Instrument Society, and review editor for the AMIS Journal and Newsletter. He has written three books on the history of the clarinet, published by Oxford University Press, and Four Centuries of Musical Instruments: the Catalog of the Marlowe A. Sigal Musical Instrument Collection, published by Schiffer Publications. He is also a retired librarian, and was a musical instrument museum curator. In 2011, he was awarded the American Musical Instrument Society's Curt Sachs Prize honoring lifetime devotion to scholarship related to musical instruments, and the 2011 Nicholas Besseraboff Prize for the most distinguished book-length work in English published in 2009 which best furthers the Society's goal "to promote study of the history, design, and use of musical instruments in all cultures and from all periods."

Review :
"...A book full of fascinating and useful information. Belongs on the desk of every clarinetist and clarinet teacher..."--Dr. David Ross, Professor of Music, University of Texas at El Paso, Noted Clarinet Historian "Notes for Clarinetists shows that Albert Rice is not only one of the foremost historians of the clarinet, but also a thoughtful and accomplished musician. The book will be of great help to clarinetists as they prepare for performances of the significant repertoire it covers. Each essay provides a wealth of information that will surely be an indispensible resource deserving a place on every clarinetist's bookshelf."--Jane Ellsworth, Professor of Music, Eastern Washington University "With clear and precise prose, the chosen point of view for analysis of each work is eminently practical and designed for the reader to easily identify the most important points [of each piece]...The book's utility, especially for professors and practitioners, is indisputable. We all know how frequently print editions include mistakes. Rice, through his thorough research, anticipates these errors, always providing corrections and naming sources...Notes for Clarinetists [is] an indispensable tool for professional clarinetists, professors, students, amateurs and researchers." --Quodlibet [Albert Rice] presents information that will shape and deepen a performance. While every sentence in this invaluable reference is packed with content, the book is an easy, enjoyable and fascinating read. Each entry includes analytical charts or musical examples to allow the performer to better understand how the music is structured...Notes for Clarinetists will quickly become a go-to book for clarinetists of all levels, from amateurs and students to top professionals."--The Clarinet "Rice, a prolific writer-researcher on the development of the clarinet, has now published a book on this instrument's repertory. The 35 works chosen for inclusion are commonly performed by advanced students, and lean toward the serious works in the repertory: one quarter are standard concertos (Mozart, Spohr, Copland, and Nielsen) and less-familiar ones (Crussell, Krommer, Fran�aix, and Stamitz)...He is the recipient of the Besseraboff and Curt Sachs prizes from the American Musical Instrument Society, of which he is a past president" -- Choice, C.A. Kolczynski "Notes for Clarinetists also fills a gap in clarinet scholarship. While numerous books cover the history of the instrument, performance techniques, individual composers, or specific pieces, there have been few surveys of the core repertoire for the instrument. Rice's volume achieves this admirably. It provides a treasure trove of information that can get any clarinetist started on the road to understanding and performing some of the most important pieces in the repertoire. While each chapter provides a snapshot of a musical work, the organizational formula ties the individual chapters together in a cohesive whole. Rice's enthusiasm for the literature is evident throughout, making this an informative and enjoyable read. Notes for Clarinetists deserves a place on every clarinetist's shelf." --Notes