Lyons, Graham: Useful Clarinet Solos (B flat)

Graham Lyons writes… “The purpose is to provide clarinet players, who are in their early stages, with pieces they will enjoy working on and playing. Whatever the original source of the piece, my intention has been to turn it into a convincing clarinet piece. Sometimes I have had to arrange and adapt the music quite radically: the great composers unfortunately did not choose to write their most inspired music in the form of short pieces for clarinet and piano!

Converting great music into pieces that sound right in their new context and that suit both the instrument and the player of moderate ability, gives rise to many challenges. In my attempts at fulfilling them, I am certain to have offended some purists. However, I am equally certain that a literal transcription of the composer’s notes would in most cases be a travesty of the composer’s intentions — just as a literal translation of a poem into another language destroys its essence.

Once a clarinet player can play sustained musical phrases and is familiar with a moderate range of notes, he or she will be able to play the easier pieces in this books. Altogether, Useful Clarinet Solos will provide the average player with two or three years study and playing material. Every piece here has been selected and arranged with extreme care. There is no dead wood.

The clarinet parts hold the main interest and will make sense to the player by themselves. The notes range from low F sharp to high C, and are in keys with no more than two sharps or flats.

The piano parts, I hope, do more than just accompany. With them I have attempted to create the feeling given by the music in its original context. The parts are mostly simply written, but they do require accurate and sympathetic playing.”