Кларнет ми-бемоль: особенности и применение

Sopranino member of the clarinet family

The E flat (E) clarinet is a member of the clarinet family, smaller than the more common B clarinet and pitched a perfect fourth higher. It is typically considered the sopranino or piccolo member of the clarinet family and is a transposing instrument in E with a sounding pitch a minor third higher than written. In Italian it is sometimes referred to as a terzino and is generally listed in B based scores (including many European band scores) as terzino in Mi♭. The E flat clarinet has a total length of about 49 cm. The E clarinet is used in orchestras, concert bands, and marching bands, and plays a central role in clarinet choirs, carrying melodies that would be uncomfortably high for the B clarinet. Solo repertoire is limited, but composers from Berlioz to Mahler have used it extensively as a solo instrument in orchestral contexts.

Many orchestration and instrumentation books show the highest written note for the E flat clarinet as G6, compared to C7 for clarinets in A or B flat.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the clarinet in high F took this role until the E clarinet took over beginning sometime in the second decade of the 1800s.

While most E clarinets are built and marketed for professionals or advanced students, inexpensive plastic E clarinets have been produced for beginning children's use. These have a simplified fingering system, lacking some of the trill keys and alternative fingerings.

After 1950, works using E clarinet are too numerous to note individually. However, among those where the instrument is featured beyond what would be considered normal in recent music are John Adams's Chamber Symphony, where two players play E and bass clarinet and "double" on soprano and Adriana Hölszky's A due for two E clarinets. The extended techniques of the B clarinet, including multiphonics, flutter tonguing, and extreme registers, have all been imported to the E.