Transcribing Wind and Brass Instrument Music for Cello
THE FAST-BLOWING WINDS
The clarinet, saxophone and flute (unlike the bassoon, oboe and horn) really flow, which is why they are so suited (unlike the cello) to jazz melodies and improvisations. Let’s look first at some of these faster wind instruments:
THE CLARINET
The clarinet, when transposed down an octave, shares an almost identical register with the cello, which makes it more or less identical to the viola register. In the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, for example, played on the original basset clarinet for which it was written and transposed down an octave, the lowest clarinet note corresponds to our open C-string pitch and the highest note to a D, a fourth above our mid-string harmonic on the A-string. On the cello, we very often play higher than this, which means that clarinet music transcribed for cello one octave lower, rarely poses any high-register problems.
This similarity of register (albeit with an octave difference) explains why there are a few pieces that were written interchangeably for either cello or clarinet, such as:
- Schumann: Fantasy Pieces
- Schubert: Sheperd On The Rock
This register equivalence also means that clarinet repertoire can be a convenient source for cello transcriptions, for example:
- Mozart Clarinet Concerto
- Brahm’s Clarinet Sonatas
THE SAXOPHONE
The sax is the ultimate jazz melody instrument and if we want to play jazz, we will almost certainly want to steal from the saxophone repertoire. Because saxophones are tuned to flat keys (Bb and Eb), we may want/need to do one or both of the following two things when raiding their repertoire:
- transpose the pieces from their original keys into easier keys (sharp keys where we can use the higher open strings)
- put them in the mid to high cello fingerboard register so that we can more easily use the thumb, which gives us more notes in each hand position
THE FLUTE
The flute is a high instrument, the wind equivalent of the violin but with its lowest note (middle C) a perfect fourth higher than the open G-string of the violin. Therefore, even if we transpose flute music down an octave, our lowest note will still only be C on the G-string, meaning we could even transpose it down two octaves and still be in our normal cello register.
THE SLOWER BLOWERS
The french horn, oboe and bassoon are, like the cello, somewhat less virtuosic instruments in the sense that they are not usually played as fast as the clarinet, flute and saxophone.
THE FRENCH HORN
Although the cello and the horn share a similar register and timbre, it is quite unusual that we might play the same pieces. A rare exception is Schumann’s magnificent “Adagio and Allegro” which was published by Schumann for either horn, violin, viola or cello (all with the same piano part).