Edition Comparison - Albert: 24 Varied Scales & Exercises

Comparing the following editions:

Appearance
Both editions are digitally engraved, and fit each key onto a single page.  There are minor differences in their visual appearance and spacing, since the Carl Fischer edition fits the 12 exercises onto 14 lines, while the Jeanné edition fits them onto 12 lines.  Overall, the Carl Fischer is more spacious, but noteheads are almost 10% smaller than those of the Jeanné edition.  The difference is subtle, but noticeable, and some clarinettists may find the Jeanné edition's slightly enlarged notation to be more comfortable, despite the more compact spacing.

The Carl Fischer edition omits the repeat markings from all exercises, and also removes the rests from the end of each exercise.  This allows the notes to spread out comfortably across the width of the page, more so than the Jeanné edition:

Top: Jeanné, Bottom: Carl Fischer

In the Jeanné edition, exercise no. 9 has been split across two separate lines (whereas the Carl Fischer edition keeps it on one line).  The player's eye must navigate this "hitch", but it is the price to pay for fitting all of the exercises onto fewer lines.

Editing
Clarinettists who are familiar with Carl Fischer's previous edition edited by Paul de Ville will notice a few changes in both present versions.  A complete list of all exercises and the differences between editions can be found here.

First, the Jeanné edition is essentially a duplicate of the now out-of-print "old" Carl Fischer edition, with only a couple of minor differences.  There are only repeat markings at the end of exercises 1 and 2; they have been omitted from exercises 3–12.  For minor keys, editor John Anderson has added accidentals above exercise no. 1's melodic minor scale to give the harmonic form of the scale:

All of the articulation in the Carl Fischer edition is completely slurred, whereas the Jeanné edition generally slurs smaller groups of notes, reflective of the intervallic/scale-fragment grouping.

In addition to G♭ Major/E♭ Minor, the Carl Fischer edition includes enharmonic equivalent keys of F♯ Major and D♯ Minor, bringing the total number of keys to 26 (the title of 24 Exercises was kept for historical purposes).

Julie Deroche, the editor for the present Carl Fischer edition, exchanges exercise no. 2's previous septuplet rhythm for basic sixteenth notes (the Jeanné edition maintains the septuplets).

Furthermore, all of the triplet eighth-note rhythms have been changed to sextuplet sixteenth-notes.  While this might first suggest that the student's first execution of the arpeggio triad is expected at effectively twice the speed compared to the previous version, DeRoche's introductory notes instruct clarinettists to choose a slower tempo for the sextuplets (approximately 20 metronome clicks slower than the basic sixteenth notes' tempo).

The result is that while the book could previously be used with a single metronome setting for an entire page, DeRoche suggests that the metronome speed should be tweaked down whenever there are six notes to a beat, as opposed to four.  If one intends to work through the exercises in the order presented on the page, this would mean switching the metronome eight times between the two different speed settings.

For clarinettists who were already playing the the old edition's triplets at double speed, this could be a welcome notation change.  Of course, clarinettists can simply look at the sextuplets and play half-speed triplets instead, and then use a single metronome setting.  Besides this, there are subtle effects created by removing all of the triplet eighth-notes from the notation.  Clarinettists will have slightly less variety in rhythm exposure compared to what was previously a mixture of triplets and sextuplets.  Exercises 3 and 8 can be executed with less or no breaths, particularly if the metronome speed is unchanged at the higher setting.  For clarinettists who are uninterested in altering the metronome speed during the execution of a page, the resulting uptick in "difficulty curve" for arpeggio triads may provide a welcome challenge.

What's Inside
The Jeanné edition provides a single page of practice suggestions, mostly offering helpful rhythmic grouping variations.  In the Carl Fischer edition, DeDoche lays out a thorough practice plan, including an example week of progressing metronome speeds.

Other Adaptations
Kristine Dizon's Achieving Virtuosity is a compilation of Jean-Baptiste Albert's 24 Varied Scales and Exercises with an expansion of the mechanism exercises from Hyacinthe Klosé's Complete Method for the Clarinet.  Each key presents several pages of mechanism exercises followed by a page of the Albert scales/chords, offering clarinetists a structured path for progressive development of clarinet technique.  It is available as a single collection of both major and minor keys, or as two separate volumes of only major keys and only minor keys.

From the Albert, Dizon omitted two exercises: the septuplet scale (as compared to Jeanné) and the triad arpeggio with lower chromatic neighbors in sextuplet sixteenth-notes. The melodic minor modes are changed to harmonic minor.  There is one change in articulation, as the scale in thirds slurs groups of 12 notes (whereas the Jeanné edition slurs groups of 2 notes, and Carl Fischer slurs all).

Summing Up
Clarinettists who prefer the past edition from Carl Fischer, which was virtually unchanged for over 100 years, will be glad to know that the present Jeanné edition closely matches it.  The updated Carl Fischer edition has been given an aesthetic refresh, and DeRoche's editorial tweaks offer a slight variation on this important pedagogical work.