Ballade
Bass Clarinet
By Eugene Bozza

Ballade. This piece is amazing. It helped me get better as a musician, and it is so diverse, so complex, and so beautiful, it will make any musician happy to hear it. If you are a serious bass clarinet player, then I wholly tell you to get this piece and...

play it for yourself.

I loved playing Ballade because it's really technical and has a whole bunch of musical variations. It's a showy piece that starts out kinda bright then gets gradually darker and deeper in tone. Like the other 2 reviews said, it's very technical and will need to use...

alternate fingerings. Aother reason that i enjoy playing Ballade is that there is a lot of dynamic contrast that I was really able to play around with. This piece can be tricky though because there is a common use of triplets and it is easy to get off track. Also, in the in the Allegro Vivace section at the end, watch out for the articulations and speed. Another solo that you might have fun with is called Andante and Allegro, or Pastorale and Bouree.

I, like Kevin in the previous review, played sections of this piece for an audition and got first chair as well. The piece has lots of technicality, I find myself using alternate fingerings for notes, and my private lesson teacher taught me some of them. It's a beautiful piece...

of music and very fun to play. ENJOY!

I am assuming that this is the original version written for Bass Clarinet and Piano. I played this for an audition against about 5 othe bass clarinet players and was placed first chair without hesitation. It is an extremely odd piece, with an open key and lots of accidentals. It...

has numerous complicated rhythms (my first experience with 32 descending chromatic runs...) This is a necessity for any advancing bass clarinet player.