Klarinet Archive - Posting 000087.txt from 1996/03

From: Armand Ferland <Armand.Ferland@-----.CA>
Subj: Re: The film you mentioned on the KLARINET list...
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 13:07:33 -0500

At 01:31 04/03/96, Jeff Carwile wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I saw your recent posting on the klarinet list, and I was wondering if you
>could give me more information about the film you saw (where I might be
>able to locate it would be great).
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Jeff Carwile
>carwile@-----.org

Good day,

Unfortunately, I am unable to locate the film myself.

I met Joseph Marchi in 1978, in Libramont, Belgium, where I had been
invited to conduct my clarinet choir ("Choeur de clarinettes de
l'Universite Laval") during Festival international de clarinettes organized
by Marcel Ancion. Joseph Marchi was present as a faculty member and
presented his most interesting film.

Years later, in 1990, I hosted CLARINETFEST 1990 at Laval University,
Quebec City, and tried to get in touch with Joseph Marchi. Unsuccessfully.
I wrote to his home address and received no reply; and to the Conservatoire
in Marseilles only to learn that he had retired. I will try to get
information from friends in Paris or Brussells and, if successful, will let
you know.

Joseph Marchi is (was ?) also an inventor. He invented an additional
register key which opens a small hole in the barrel with the help of a
"correspondance" lever similar to the one between left-hand and right-hand
joints. This new register key allows one to play 5th harmonics as easily
as the third harmonics and facilitates playing in the altissimo, the REAL
altissimo: above high G (4 ledger lines above staff) and beyond C above
that. For example, with the fingering for low E, you can also play B (third
line) using the normal register key, and G# (just above the staff) using
the new register key. This means that one can now play from that G# up to
high Bflat (5 ledger lines above the staff) using normal chromatic
fingerings of B (middle line) to C (2 ledger lines above the staff). This
clarinet was produced by Selmer and I spent a couple of hours playing it in
the Selmer buildng in Paris. A beautiful clarinet, but a bit bulky compared
to the standard models. Joseph Marchi also published a clarinet method
which provides all the required information to use the Marchi System,
including a colour-coded fingering chart indicating at a glance the use or
not of the 5th harmonic register key.

I wanted Joseph Marchi to introduce and play his invention at the 1990
ClarinetFest. By that time I had all but forgotten his X-Ray film (or were
they a series of X-Ray still pictures?) and it is Nick Shackleton's post
which reminded me of it a few days ago.

I am sending this to the entire list because of the information on the
little-known Marchi System which may interest others.

Armand

Armand Ferland
1196, rue Eugene-Hamel
Sainte-Foy (Quebec)
Canada G1W 4G4
Home: (418) 651-5017
e-mail: Armand.Ferland@-----.ca