Free recording of John Adams' "Gnarly Buttons"

Here is a piece of music that you can't miss. The piece for solo clarinet and chamber orchestra is in three movement. Beautiful and touching.

Please listen to Sean Osborne playing John Adams' Gnarly Buttons on Sean Osborne's home page.

Please go to John Adams' home page to read the composer notes about this piece.

Happy listening!

Free sheet music: Wagner's Shepherd song from Tristan and Isolde

At the beginning of the third act of Tristan and Isolde you can hear a beautiful and unforgettable solo, the Shepher's song played on "Corn Anglais". There is no orchestra, no singing, nothing but the musician (on stage, as explicitly noted by Wagner on the score) playing this magnificient piece of music.

It is slow and filled with incredible longing.

In my opinion it is very tough to render it on the clarinet as beautifully as it can be rendered on the corn anglais, mainly due to difficulty to make the perfect legato on the octave jump as corn anglais and oboes can. However it is a piece of music of such beauty that it will keep you entertained for a long time and will give you some hard time to get the perfect colour, intonation, sublime legato and staccato as it requires...

Here it is for you to enjoy:

Download Free sheet music for Wagner's Shepherd Song arranged for clarinet solo.

Happy playing!

Free sheet music: Schubert Trio D471 for clarinet trio

Schubert's String Trio D.471 for violin, viola and cello in B flat major is an unfinished piece. Schubert seems to have composed only the first movement. It is a delightful piece that works very well with a clarinet trio (2 clarinets and a bass clarinet).

There are few tremolos, even though they are not fast ones, they are always a bit troublesome for the clarinet. I suggest to avoid playing too much staccato on those and just tongue lighly.

You can download here sibelius files, PDFs for score and parts and a midi file of the piece.

Download Free sheet music for Schubert Trio D.471 arranged for clarinet trio.

Enjoy it!

Mozart: String quartet K464 for clarinet quartet

Mozart's string quartet k464 in A major is one of the six "Haydn quartets", full of intensity, pathos but also sense of humour. See wikipedia for more information on these beautiful quartets.
This transcription for clarinet quartet (3 Bb clarinets and one bass clarinet) originates from Oliver Seely's excellent original transcription for 4 clarinets. I am deeply grateful to Oliver who was so kind to send me the original files in a format compatible to Sibelius to make my work easier.

Compared to Oliver's transcription this transcription feature a bass clarinet and it is transposed down in G major (concert key of F major), avoiding need of transposing the first clarinet part one octave below to make it fit in the clarinet range, and also to keep harmony and distances between parts as in the original score.

You may use the included sibelius source files to transpose the quartet to A major (concert key G major), raising the level of technical difficulty but all parts will stay well within the normal clarinet range, and the quartet should sound slightly lighter than the proposed transcription.

Download free sheet music for Mozart's quartet K464 transcribed for clarinet quartet.

Happy playing!

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