Klarinet Archive - Posting 000457.txt from 1996/03

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5%esc.cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Oehler
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:41:11 -0500

What Dan Paprocki says is correct although perhaps it could be described as
the Austrian view rather than the German view. In Germany pretty well all
serious player do use "Oehler System" in a standard form; that is to say,
the keywork is very similar to the keywork on the instruments that Oscar
Oehler was making late in his career. Certainly Herbert Wurlitzer's price
list included models with simpler keywork but I've never seen one and
suspect that anybody who could afford anything at all from his workshop went
all the way. Simpler instruments are used by children, students etc; I don't
know where the dividing lines are drawn. My (limited) experience of Austrian
instruments is that they are mechanically slightly simpler.
In fact the phrase "German Fingering" would describe both Oehler and
Hammerschmidt and equally Baermann and Stark and even Albert and Muller with
a few reservations concerning alternative keys, and concerning the degree to
which alternative fingerings produce the same pitch. Equally the
Schmidt-Kolbe system is acoustically very different with a 15.2mm bore and
quite different venting, but the basic fingering including all the alternate
keys is just like Oehler. Nick

   
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