Examination pieces for clarinet

Less fashionable than their stringed counterparts, wind instruments had to struggle during the Romantic era to be admitted into the salons and benefit from a chamber music repertoire of their own. It was therefore through musical education that these works came into being, notably competition pieces specifically composed for the evaluation of students at the Paris Conservatoire. Several Prix de Rome winners of the Belle Époque were thus commissioned to write pieces for clarinet and piano in which the technical challenges were in keeping with the expressiveness expected of a future concert performer.