Rachmaninoff's Vocalise for clarinet quartet

Rachmaninoff's vocalise No. 14 from opus 34 is a widely known piece. Romantic and beautiful and full of very dense and intricated harmonies. A joy to listen to but not always an easy piece to perform given its delicatness and complexity.

I made an arrangement for clarinet quartet (3 clarinets and a bass clarinet). It was not an easy task since the piano harmony is extremely dense and full of cromaticism which works well on the piano but requires some work with the balance on the clarinets. However I think it is a very nice piece to perform and once you have worked out all those chromatic passages and dissonances and understood them, it works well. Probably it will take a couple of repetitions (depending with your level and familiarity with late romantic chromaticism) before the music start to appears in its full beauty.

As usual I also include the Sibelius source file so that you can edit the score if you wish so. If you do it, please drop me a line and let me know. I am eager to listen and learn from your suggestions.

Download free sheet music for Rachmaninoff's vocalise for clarinet quartet

Happy playing!

Bach Sarabande for Clarinet Solo

The Sarabande from the 5th sonata for cello suite is one of Bach's greatest masterpieces. The lines and the rhythmes are simple but at the same they create a complete universe. I could not withstand the urge to play this masterpiece on the clarinet.

As all pieces that have simplicity as one of their main strengths, it is very approachable technically but extremely hard to play from a musical point of view. In other words, a piece that you can carry with you and practice all your life without getting bored and without reaching perfection...

It is also a great study in legato and expressivity. The range of my transcription is E3 to G5 which means that you can play the repeats one octave up if you wish so, to make this piece a complete legato exercise over the whole clarinet range.

The ZIP file here below includes the piece as PDF, MIDI file, and source score in Sibelius format.

Download free sheet music for Bach Sarabande adapted to clarinet solo

Nice playing to you all!

Clarinet tutorials by David Hattner

Under the curious name of AmericanClownAcademy you can find some recordings and tutorials for the clarinet. Among which a series of legato lessons by David Hattner. The series is made of 6 lessons of which 4 are available at time of writing. Even if the sound is not top quality these is undoubtetly an interesting tutorial.

I post here the first lesson on legato playing, to access the rest please follow this link:

Click here to watch the clarinet teaching material and recordings on YouTube