Klarinet Archive - Posting 000186.txt from 1995/09

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: The LeBlanc basset horn
Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 13:31:33 -0400

Roger Shilcock comments on the use of the LeBlanc basset horn in the
performance of alto clarinet music and the Mozart repertoire.

What LeBlanc makes is an excellent instrument but it is not a basset
horn, this despite their advertising it as such. The instrument is
an elongated alto clarinet pitched in the key of F. That does not
make it a poor instrument. On the contrary, they are wonderful, but
a basset horn is defined not by its pitch and extremities of range, but
by its bore size.

The LeBlanc instrument has an alto clarinet bore and uses and alto
clarinet mouthpiece. As such, the character of its sound is affected
by these things.

The Selmer and old Buffet basset horns had a basset horn bore and used
a soprano clarinet mouthpiece. Buffet, I am advised, has changed its
instrument to compete with the LeBlanc.

I suspect that it was LeBlanc who first realized that the music world
recognized about the basset horn in the early 1800s when it sort of
went away. An instrument of that length with a bore that narrow is
going to have acoustical difficulties that manifest themselves in all
the problems that the Selmer and old Buffet instruments have to this
day: intonation, squeaking, difficulties in the high register, etc.
Many, though not all, of these problems disappear with the wider bore
and LeBlanc was wise to go in that direction.

But whatever the many advantages of the LeBlanc instrument, it is not
a basset horn.

There are those who assert that one can recognize the differences in
character of sound due to the mouthpiece/bore size difference between
basset horns and alto clarinets in F. I can't speak to this.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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