For nearly two centuries the clarinet reigned as the premier wind instrument for vernacular music. So modestly did it play this role that the world came to recognize it only in the second third of the twentieth century. Only then did the Western public acknowledge its most popular and finest players as true virtuosi who equaled or surpassed in brilliance the finest “classical” clarinetists. But soon after attaining this high distinction, the clarinet slipped off its pedestal and receded to the status of a respected if limited voice in world vernacular music.

This may come as surprise to those who, like the present author, consider a fine performance of the Mozart or Brahms Clarinet Quintet as one of the highest achievements of our civilization. How can vernacular or popular musicians employ the same instrument in such radically different ways and still make great music? The secret is that the clarinet, a relative newcomer in comparison to the violin or trumpet, can express almost as broad a range of emotions as the human voice. Vernacular clarinetists on several continents have exploited this possibility.

From the time of its invention in the eighteenth century, the clarinet was acknowledged as a natural vehicle for folk music and light melodies. This is what prompted the clarinet-playing brothers Ludwig and Conrad Bänder of Kassel, Germany (1780s–1850s), to offer audiences on their concert tours “Variations on Tyrolean and Swiss Songs,” which doubtless included yodeling, as well as a potpourri of Russian folk songs. In the same spirit, Joseph Beer (1744–1812) offered the public a “French Royal Hunting Song,” and Aloysius Beerhalter played his folksy “Im kuehlen Keller sitz’ ich hier,” (Here I sit in a cool basement) from the Singspiel Die Kritikaster und der Trinker (The Cavalier and the Drinker) on his basset horn. Beerhalter, it turns out, was trained by a village musician, which doubtless gave his pieces an authenticity that a court musician would have struggled to achieve. An even earlier clarinetist with such training was Joseph Lacher (1739–1805) from near Augsburg, who was taught by his father, a proficient clarinetist in spite of the fact that he couldn't read music.