Overview
Title: Soft for solo bass clarinet
Composer: Franco Donatoni (1920-2000)
Composition Year: 1989
Instrument: Bass Clarinet (Low C)
Extended Techniques: Extreme altissimo, flutter tongue, slap tongue
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another bass clarinet solo rep analysis! Today we’ll be diving into Soft by Franco Donatoni. This piece is a fixture of the contemporary solo bass clarinet rep - it’s incredibly difficult and complex, but it sounds absolutely wonderful in performance. There are a lot of challenges when it comes to playing Soft, though, so let’s figure out how to clear them.
First, a little background. Franco Donatoni was an Italian composer who was heavily influenced by earlier figures of the musical avant-garde - think Boulez, Schoenberg, etc. He had a huge output of solo, chamber, and orchestral works. Among clarinetists, he’s notable for three of his unaccompanied pieces: Clair, for clarinet; Soft, for bass clarinet; and Ombra, for contrabass clarinet. All three pieces share similar traits: They place enormous technical challenges on the performer and are built on short motifs that develop in an almost improvisatory manner, with lots of repetition and breaks in the phrases.
Soft is another Harry Sparnaay commission, written in 1989. Although it appears on programs as a single work, it is technically made up of two smaller pieces: Soft I and Soft II. Both pieces have similar demands, but I’ll address them separately for the sake of organization.
Analysis: Soft I
1. The phrases: The phrasing in Soft I is actually not that hard to figure out. There are three large sections that make up this piece:
Section 1
Donatoni has written a whole bunch of fragments separated by rests. The trick to this section is to make these fragments sound like the individual ideas they are without making them sound isolated. Focus on creating atmosphere - the music isn’t going anywhere in particular or saying something specific; it’s like a person murmuring to themself (more on that later). You could almost treat this part like the first movement of the Stravinsky Three Pieces.
Observe the rests exactly as written - they’re Donatoni’s way of telling you exactly how much time to take between each fragment. In performance, don’t disengage your body during rests, like you would during a concerto’s tutti sections - maintain the image of being constantly active, even when you’re not physically putting air through the horn. That is essential to maintaining the atmosphere you’ve created.
Section 2
Begins at the seventh-from-last line on page 1, where the tempo changes to eighth note = 104. This is where the piece starts to get going. Section 2 is one long, drawn-out buildup to Section 3. It’s very repetitive - all the fragments in this section more or less share a similar melodic contour, and end the same way: In the extreme low register, at a ppp dynamic. Gradually, however, the music becomes more extroverted and more intense, until it finally climaxes at the start of Section 3. If Section 1 was someone muttering under their breath, Section 2 is them trying to speak coherent sentences and becoming increasingly agitated as they try to find the right words.
Section 3
Starts at the extreme altissimo D-flat that starts about halfway down page 2. This section is the complete opposite of the first two - it’s loud and extremely raucous, as the piece’s subject has finally lost their patience and is having a tantrum. This section is a release of all the energy built up in Section 2 - make it gradual so you have somewhere to go when the music finally goes into ppp. Once you hit that part, everything should feel more subdued - the only exception is the slap tongued notes, which should sound dry and pointed!
2. The rhythms and tempo: Soft is one of those pieces where everything is already “baked in” - there aren’t very many places where you can be flexible with the tempo, because Donatoni has laid everything out very precisely. As such, all the rhythms in this piece need to be followed very strictly, including and especially the rests. Take too much time during rests and you disrupt the flow of the music. When practicing, subdivision is your best friend here. Since the piece has no time signature or barlines, I highly recommend setting the metronome to not accent any beats - every click on the metronome should sound the same. Then, treat every note like it gets its own downbeat. Conducting the phrases can also help you ingrain the rhythms.
As you progress, you’ll see some note groupings that can’t be evenly divided (7s, 9s, 13s, etc.) for these, break them up into smaller chunks (7 becomes 3+4, for example) and assign downbeats to the first notes of each of these groups. The trick here is to play all the notes evenly! The placement of the beat is the only thing that should change!
All grace notes should be played ON the beat, not before.
3. The dynamics: Follow dynamics as literally as you can. When Donatoni writes “sempre ppp” he means it. Any fluctuations in volume should be extremely subtle. Starting in Section 2, you get a bunch of hairpin crescendos - make those as huge as you can, and then all the subsequent ppp are subito. As the section progresses, you’ll see a whole bunch of phrases that all begin pp. Crescendo during all of them, then make the pp all subito. During Section 3, make a gradual diminuendo from the start all the way to the written ppp.
Analysis: Soft II
The notes I’ve given for Soft I also apply to Soft II. There are only a few small things I have to say for Soft II specifically.
1. The characters and phrasing: If Soft I was a slow burn, Soft II is the exact opposite: It charges right out of the gate, takes a few moments to catch its breath, then resumes. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the third line of page 2, when things finally start to really calm down - the piece tries to get worked up again, but eventually runs out of energy and ends quietly. There are a lot of sudden dynamic changes in Soft II - make them really dramatic! The loud sections are what I call “bull in a china shop” moments: They’re chaotic, almost mindless. The softer parts are much more subdued (but they still have momentum). Lines 3-5 of page 2 is the first really calm moment of Soft II. It’s like the first movement of the Stravinsky Three Pieces - very still. After that, it’s a return to action.
Take a little bit of time before starting the top of page 2 and at the ppp section of page 2, on the third line. Those are the only two spots in this whole piece where I’d advise taking more time than what’s written.
2. The flutter tongue: Donatoni has us flutter tonguing all over the place. Not the hardest thing to do, but it becomes tricky when you add large leaps and high register playing into the mix like he has. I would advise creating the flutter effect using your throat instead of rolling your tongue - it will stabilize the pitch and make it easier to adjust your voicing.
3. The ornaments: Pay close attention to the page - Donatoni writes that all the mordents and trills are to be played as half-steps. For the parts with all the huge register leaps and grace notes, focus more on the gesture than hitting the note. Phrases like that are never going to sound perfect in performance. The effect is what matters.
Final thoughts: Take your time with this one - it’s going to take a while to internalize all the rhythmic stuff and the altissimo spots. Don’t fret about getting all the notes in performance; the gesture is always the most important thing (obviously, do your best, but no performance of Soft will ever be perfect. That’s just a given with a piece like this. Let that fact take some of the pressure off!) The name of the game with Soft is forward motion - even in the more “atmospheric” parts, this piece should never feel stagnant. Keep that in mind, and you’ll have success with Donatoni. Good luck!
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