Klarinet Archive - Posting 000491.txt from 1996/02

From: Everett J Austin <BrendaA624@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Chedeville replica by Glotin
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 02:49:47 -0500

In an effort to find out something more about the Chedeville
mythology/lineage, I spoke with Bernard Portnoy, who actually visited the
"factory" in France many years ago. He described it as a farmhouse with a
lot of people inside working on mouthpieces and he felt that there was a lot
of variation in their product in terms of materials and results, but that in
those days, they were the main producer of mpcs besides Vandoren and Selmer.
Apparently the Chedevilles and Lelandais were partners at that time and
then Lelandais took over around 1949. Glotin subsequently bought out
Lelandais and presently makes a mouthpiece, available in this country from
Weiner, which is marked "Ch Chedeville". I have a couple of these and they
seem to be made out of good material but were not very playable (squeaks,
stuffy) as is, and were better with refacing. They seemed to also vary
slightly in their tuning and interior from one to another. Given Mr
Portnoy's historical perspective, it would not seem surprising to find
variations in design. It seems to be a little hard to find a comprehensive
and authoritative source of information on the Chedevilles. Evidently early
Kaspar mouthpieces were made from their blanks.
I hope this anecdote is of some interest.

Everett Austin
Fairfax, California