

This site is home to Alea Publishing & Recording, specializing in music for the bass clarinet.
We offer a growing catalog of creative, artistic transcriptions and new works for bass clarinet solo & ensemble.
About the Music
The Mysterious Barricades is one of the most familiar and popular keyboard works of the French Baroque composer François Couperin (1668-1733). The single-movement work in rondeau form has a duration of approximately 3 minutes. The work makes an outstanding transcription for bass clarinet quartet.
The original key is B-flat major, placing the bass clarinets in a comfortable C major. The original work's range - entirely in the lower portion of the keyboard - is maintained, placing the bass clarinets in an extremely comfortable range. Each part is quite simple, making this transcription accessible even for young students. One part does require a player able to handle playing almost entirely off-the-beat. An extended-range instrument to low-C is required only for the lowest of the four parts to maintain the range of the original work, but a few notes could easily be moved up one octave if an extended-range instrument is not available.
Extended-range instrument required ONLY for lowest part. Score: 4 pages; Parts: 1-2 pages each.
Listen to the work in its original instrumentation:
PDF Edition
Purchasing this item will give you access to download the music as a PDF. If you would prefer to purchase a hard copy, please click here.
Kim Davenport
President
Alea Publishing & Recording was founded in 1997 by Michael and Kim Davenport, the father-daughter bass clarinet/piano duo. As performers searching for new repertoire and teachers working with students eager to develop as performers, it quickly became clear that there was a need for more repertoire featuring the bass clarinet. Filling this need became the mission of Alea.
The Alea Publishing catalog has now grown to include over 400 titles. We pride ourselves on the accuracy and quality of our sheet music, as well as our ability to reach customers around the world with both hard copy scores and PDF downloads.
We are proud of the diversity of our catalog in terms of the inclusion of works by composers and arrangers from around the world. We are interested in continuing to expand this diversity, representing musical ideas from around the world.
Following Michael's passing in 2019, Kim has taken over solo management of Alea Publishing. In 2020, Alea established the Dolphy Prize, an annual award for Black musicians who are engaged in composing and performing works featuring the bass clarinet.
Would you like to be informed about additions to our catalog and other news? Join our e-mail list!