Klarinet Archive - Posting 000297.txt from 1995/01

From: David Lechner <dlechner@-----.NET>
Subj: Mahler's footnote (reply to J. Cohler's note; Albert system
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 01:55:30 -0500

The German you cited from the Mahler piece would translate to something
like the following:

Note: From this point on (and, to be sure, not 4 measures earlier) until
the end it is recommended that the horns be magnified until the hymn-like
Choral, which drowns out everything, has reached the necessary sonority.
All horn players stand in order to achieve the greatest possible volume.
It is possible that a trumpet and trombone will also need to join in.

If possible, when entering German text, indicate umlauted vowels by a
following "e" (u-umlaut @-----.) The ess-tset (looks like a capital
"B") can similarly be indicated as "ss" -- on many systems umlaut characters
wind up converted to 3-character codes "@-----. which can only be
unraveled by context and comparison. For example, I could see that
=FCber had to be "ueber" and substitute "ue" for any remaining "=FC"
sequences. I guess this would be the linguistic equivalent of sight
transposition. ;{) This topic (handling special characters) has been talked
to death on some of the German language newsgroups and list servers; it's
amazing how many variations there are.

To come back to matters of the clarinet, I was looking in a reference book
today at a picture of an Albert system clarinet and I was struck by the fact
that I don't believe I've ever seen one before, although I've heard that
New Orleans Dixieland musicians allegedly preferred them. If that is true,
is there anyone still making Albert system clarinets or are they like
restored model T Fords (find one used and restore it ...) Can anyone
comment in a little detail whether they offered any advantages in terms
of tone and/or mechanics? Or was the Boehme system universally superior
to the Albert system, sort of like an 486 based computer versus a 286
based computer?

David Lechner

lechner@-----.us
or dlechner@-----.net