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.
Louis Marchand (1669-1732) was a French organist, harpsichordist and composer of the Baroque era. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosos of his time. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, at the French court.
The Three Pieces for Clarinet Quartet, arranged by Kevin Holland, were taken from Marchand's Suite for harpsichord in d minor (1699). The three dance movements - Chaconne, Gavote Rondeau, and Menuet - are lovely examples of Baroque writing. With their short length and lack of any great challenge of range or technique for any of the players, the set would make an excellent selection for a student ensemble. That said, they are also musically worthy of addition to the repertoire of any clarinet quartet!
Quartet scoring: three clarinets, bass clarinet (extended-range NOT required). Score: 11 pages, spiral bound; Parts: 4 pages each, single sheet.
Listen to the movements from the Suite which are part of this arrangement, in their original instrumentation for solo harpsichord:
Kim Davenport
President
Duo Alea, the father-daughter duo of Michael and Kimberly Davenport, began performing music for bass clarinet and piano in 1996. 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 Publishing & Recording.
Since our first publication in 1997, the Alea catalog has now grown to include over 300 titles. We pride ourselves on the accuracy and quality of our sheet music, as well as our ability to ship directly to customers around the world.
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 composition award for new works for bass clarinet by black composers.
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