Klarinet Archive - Posting 000651.txt from 1995/12

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Dave Lane's Buffet
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 1995 10:46:01 -0500

I cannot, of course, be sure without seeing the instrument described in
Dave's letter and also learning what he meant by an A-flat/E-flat left
hand "lever", but what I believe he has is simply what used to be called
"a full Boehm System" clarinet. Let me work under the assumption that
I have correctly described it because any other assumption and this note
is done right now.

Full Boehm instruments in both B-flat, A, and even E-flat clarinets
were as common as garden style variety peas from roughly the 1930s
to the mid 1960s. They were characterized by 5 singularities:

(1) compass of the instrument was extended to low written
E-flat (which is what Dave described)

(2) f#-g# articulation (built for a trill in Carmen) as
Dave described

(3) left hand g/a-flat tremulo key (not a lever) that
was fingered by lifting the middle finger of the left hand
(this is the unclear part in Dave's note)

(4) extra right hand lever-key for something but I never
used it so I forgot about it and it was not on all full
Boehm clarinets in any case (not metioned by Davd)

(5) a-flat/e-flat in both pinkys (as Dave described).

This instrument is still the most popular one in Russia today and
is the one for which Prokoffiev wrote the Peter and the Wolf solo.
Today we only play it on the A clarinet, but the part was originall
for a B-flat clarinet that had a low e-flat on it.

The problem with the instrument was that the key work that allowed
the left hand g/a-flat tremulo was detrimental to the intonation
of the entire instrument and with an acoustical flaw like that,
the instruments were not taken up by the major players.

I have a pair of these instruments and I bought the last one in
Paris in 1963. You still see them in catalogs from time to time
but their day is past.

I always liked the technical advantages that the instrument gave
me and the fact that we see some of the goodies on clarinets
being built today (left and right hand e-flat/a-flat) shows that
something good came out of them.

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