Use extreme caution when scoring octave melodies for clarinets. Be aware that the overtones reinforce each other with great potency. If you need an octave melody in winds but want to avoid such a pungent sound, try them with the clarinet as the top instrument over a bassoon or english horn, or the old Mozart and Haydn trick of flute over bassoon. In the sample below, Stravinsky intentionally wants an eerie, edgy sound for the Dance of the Moor in Petrushka. So he sets the clarinet and bass clarinet not one, but two octaves apart. The effect is one of barely suppressed menace, plus a blush of the exotic and a touch of buffoonery. Exactly what’s needed right there, as usual with Stravinsky.
