Arranging for the Dolce Trio

Since we are of the most unusual setting for a classical trio we can only play music that’s either originally composed for our setting, arranged from another setting to ours or just transposed from other instruments and using the existing piano part.

From the first group IMSLP offers only five alternatives: two of which are way too modern for restaurants, two that are too boring and one by the not-so-famous romanticist Waldemar von Baussnern. He’s actually written a ‘Serenade’ consisting of four movements, very similar to those of a sonata. At the second bar of the first movement von Baussnern makes use of a medient – it can’t get any closer to the romantic stereotype than that. However, since especially the fast movements contain a lot of notes and we have quite limited practice time onboard we have not yet started to play it together. Von Baussnern has also written a quintet for piano, clarinet, violin, cello and french horn (just saying…).

From the second group of music type we play a ‘concerto a tre’ by Telemann (for ‘Flauto dolce’ and Corno or Viola), the ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio by Mozart (for clarinet and viola) and a ‘Sonata a tre’ by Gluck (for two violins), and further the Papageno/Papagena duet by Mozart, the Barcarolle by Offenbach and the ‘Duetto buffo de due gatti’ by Rossini from the opera world.

As a combination of the second and third group we have a couple of piano trio arrangement of pieces that we use with the clarinet playing the cello part (pizzicato aside), such as: Beethoven symhpony no. 8 Menuett, Schubert Octet Op. 166 Scherzo and Beethoven Septett Theme and Variations.

Moving on to the arrangements we have done for ourselves some of them are easier than others. For example, in the 2^nd movement of the Mozart clarinet concerto, the violin just plays the part from the original orchestra score which is then subtracted from the piano part. The same technique goes for Vocalise by Rachmaninov, where the piano part gladly gives up one of its many voices to the clarinet.

In some of the pices that are originally for just one melody and accompaniment, the instrument not playing the melody in our trio, be it either the clarinet or the violin, gets accompaniment notes from the piano part. To avoid that the piano part then sounds too simple and hollow we need to give it some extra, doubling chord notes, especially in the bass – but this will only enhance the overall sound because it gets thicker and fuller.

Every piece actually needs its special technique re-arranging it, and competent decisions of what parts and voices to put in what instrument and register and so on. The hardest to arrange is of course symphonic works, but it is also what is the most fun and rewarding when it works! Apart from the Mozart piano concert no. 21 in C major ‘Elwira Madigan’, the slow movement, which is basically all piano with a few long notes in the clarinet and pizzicato in the violin, I’ve recently finished the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5^th symphony. Here the piano consists mainly of the harp and bass part, and when the music grows so does the quantity of notes, both horizontally and vertically. If a sustained bass is needed simply add low octave tremolos and that’ll do it. Especially in the Largo from Dvorak’s 9^th symphony.

With our list of 80 classical and 50 pop songs we’ve covered most of the light classical repertoire, that is, what people may recognize. And in addition to arranging the pieces we like ourselves, we go by the rule to just arrange what people ask about, if we can’t find it in our list or in the ‘Classical Experience’ book for Solo Clarinet.

The last point in this blogg entry is that we would welcome and play any arrangement if you, dear (musician) readers, feel like doing it. All you need is some a little general knowledge of music and instruments, and Sibelius or Finale (music-writing software). We are grateful for the ones we have already received – Scarborough Fair by Samer and A whole new world by Bjorn, we play them every week and enjoy it very much!

/Henrik