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Klarinet Archive - Posting 000035.txt from 1994/03
From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Clarinet in B - end of story
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 21:40:50 -0500
So far no one has won the prize for naming the two operas (by aria)
where Mozart uses clarinets in B-natural (in German, Klarinet in H),
but Karen Noel-Bentley is a good candidate for winning. She got one
right off the bat but the second one has eluded her.
But let me finish the B-natural clarinet story.
For the last issue of 1991, I did an article for the clarinet magazine
called "Mozart and the Clarinet in B-natural." It was done for the
purpose of commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death.
About 6 months after the article was printed, I received a call from a
total stranger who, after identifying himself to me, said that he had
been given my name by the chairman of the music dept. at a local
community college. He had a clarinet that he wanted to sell and stated
that it was very unusual.
I invited him over and this nice young man of about 20 showed up. He
had a Buffet clarinet that, by its serial number, could not have been
very new. I later dated it to ca. 1920 or perhaps earlier, but not
later. This young man did not play clarinet. It was his girlfriend's
instrument and they lived in northern California by the Oregon border in
a small town called Yreka (not Eureka).
I assembled the instrument, put a mouthpiece in it and toodled for a
while. Something was strange about the sound. It was very much like
a C clarinet (which I like to think of as capable of cutting sheet
steel at 20 yards). But when I took out my C and compared the two,
this strange horn was longer.
Then I took out my B-flat and, for this comparison, the strange horn was
shorter; i.e., it was between a C clarinet and a B-flat clarinet. So
I went to the piano in my living room and played a B-major scale. To
play this same scale on the strange clarinet, I had to play a written
C major scale.
My first thought was "This is a clarinet in B-natural!" But it turns out
that I was wrong and I learned a great deal over the next few weeks.
The young man who had brought the instrument thought that he had a
treasure of great worth. But the horn was so badly out of tune with
itself (no matter what key it was built in) that it was a completely
worthless instrument. I offered him $50 and he wanted $1,000. We
parted friends and I have no idea where he or this instrument is today.
I always wondered how his girlfriend could have played the instrument
in her high school band, which is what her boyfriend said. It would have
been a half tone out.
But what I found out was that, in the early part of this century, when you
got a call to play a gig, the first question you asked (after how much
does the gig pay) was "Is this a high or a low pitch job." And all
the manufacturers made clarinets (and everything else too) in a high
pitch (which, for all practical purposes, raised the instrument by
almost a half tone) or low pitch (which is what we play today).
So what I had been playing on was a clarinet in B-flat that was deliberately
made into a higher pitch standard than we have today, but which was in
considerable use until ca. 1920. Later, a repairman in the midwest offered
me a pair of such high pitched instruments (A and B-flat) dating from ca
1910 for $200 the set. I am still thinking about it but I have no idea
where I would use them (except in Cosi Fan Tutte and Idomeneo for the
B-flat instrument). I suppose a high pitched A is a B-flat clarinet.
But now I'm confused.
This was an epoch in clarinet playing about which I had had no knowledge
whatsoever and I really learned something by the adventure.
====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================
