Klarinet Archive - Posting 000319.txt from 1995/04

From: Frances M Robinson <intm5@-----.UK>
Subj: Frances Robinson and the MYSTERY CLARINET-THE LEGEND CONTINUES
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 17:28:56 -0400

"fifty eight?"
"well, you see it is an E flat clarinet in rosewood"
"hmmmm"
IN THE CAR
my dad:
"well he wasn't prepared to bargain and we really don't know anything
about it, so we can't buy it"

We get home. The next day, dad asks our friend Peter Halls if we should
have bought this rosewood e flat clarinet. "YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T BUY IT???"
was the reply. So. we rang my aunty and asked her to buy it. The next
weekend, she doesn't go to Harry Tuffins. I am agonising by this point. A
fortnight later we get a phone call-"I've got the clarinet" I talk to Tim
Bayley-"are you sure it's not a C clarinet?", he says. Now, think forward to
this very evening... ...

I get out the car and rush into the house. I get out both clarinets, and
try to put a reed on the new one.... It won't fit!!!!!!!
A couple of hours later, my dad calls to me-"look Frances, the mouthpiece
from your normal clarinet fits this one perfectly. I put a reed in,
tighten the ligature. For a moment, my family are silent. I put the reed
to my lips. A magical sound fills the room, sweet and slightly oboeish. I
play the scale, comin from this cold instrument, marooned on some lonely
stall then left in my Grandma's house, it is almost absurdly beautiful.
Play a C, my mum says walking over to the piano. I play one. She plays
the pianos C. They are, if a little out of tune, a the same. A hundred
years, and it is still beautiful-a French fin de siecle C Clarinet and an
electronic keyboard in perfect harmony
EVERYONE JUMPS AROUND SHOUTING "LOOK ITS A C CLARINET TIM BAYLEY WAS RIGHT!!"