It is a single reed instrument of the woodwind family and consists of a closed tube with a single beating reed5. The clarinet is of essentially a cylindrical bore and is made in a variety of sizes and tonalities. The soprano clarinet is tuned in B flat, with the “Boehm system” of keywork and fingering6. It is also a transposing woodwind instrument, …show more content…
The earliest known soloist was a military musician by the name of Charles Hoffman from Philadelphia in 1769 and the first female clarinetist to appear in America was Margaret Knittel9. Notable music composed for the clarinet in orchestral works includes Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Copeland’s Appalachian Spring and Salon El Mexico10. Handel too composed twice for the clarinet; The Overture in D and also he used chalumeaux in the opera Ricardo Primo11. Mozart did not use the clarinet till 1780 and even after that he did not include it in many of his compositions. This comes as a surprise because of Mozart’s remark in a letter to his father saying ‘Alas, if only we also had clarinets’. Mozart’s Idomeneo requires clarinets, Kegelstatt Trio’ k498, the Quintet k581 and the Concerto k622 used