The earliest bass clarinet had bended, double-sized wooden pipes. When seeing this strange looking horn, people expected to hear a crude and harsh sound. It turned out to be rich, strong, mellow and full. Thus it was called glicibarifano.

The great opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer loved the bass clarinet so much that he made it the main musical instrument in the opera Les Huguenots, which also featured the first bass clarinet solo in history.

Guest: A Xi (Zhang Jixi, Bass clarinet performer and scholar)

A Xi is a musician and scholar from Taiwan. He changed his career track from medicine to music. He spent eight years in the Netherlands studying classical music and performance. This June, we invite him and his musical instrument to tell stories of the bass clarinet with words and music– its origin and history, character and highlights.

Repertoir
1. Bach Cello Suite No.2
2. Harald Genzmer, Sonate for Bass clarinet solo
3. Terry Winter Owens, Klage
4. Ivana Loudova, Aulos
5. David Mott (Can 1945) Serge Chaloff In Memoriam_19936. Patrice Sciortino, Sillons