page_title: Contrabass clarinet
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Contrabass clarinet / History
caption_attribution_description: Contrabass or pedal clarinet in B♭, Fontaine Besson, London, post-1890, maple, Simple system. Photographed at the Bate Collection at the University of Oxford, England.
context_page_description: The contrabass clarinet and contra-alto clarinet are the two largest members of the clarinet family that are in common usage. Modern contrabass clarinets are pitched in B♭, sounding two octaves lower than the common B♭ soprano clarinet and one octave lower than the B♭ bass clarinet. Some contrabass clarinet models have a range extending down to low E♭, while others can play down to low D or further to low C. This range, C – E, sounds B♭ – D. Some early instruments were pitched in C; Arnold Schoenberg's Fünf Orchesterstücke specifies a contrabass clarinet in A, but there is no evidence of such an instrument ever having existed.
  The contrabass clarinet is also sometimes known by the name pedal clarinet, this term referring not to any aspect of the instrument's mechanism but to an analogy between its very low tones and the pedal division of the organ.
  Subcontrabass clarinets, lower in pitch than the contrabass, have been built on only an experimental basis.
  The E♭ contra-alto clarinet is sometimes referred to as the "E♭ contrabass clarinet".
caption: Besson contrabass clarinet, post-1890
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