bass clarinet

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bass clarinet. One of cl. family, pitched in B♭, an octave below the B♭ sop. (treble) cl. In Eng. and Fr. instrs. its range extends to E♭ (sounding D♭). Earliest extant examples made in 1793. Meyerbeer wrote for it, later Wagner, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. See clarinet.