Klarinet Archive - Posting 000462.txt from 1996/03

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Oehler
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 17:41:16 -0500

This is outstanding. Many thanks to both Nick and Dan for their
well-informed replies!

Neil

On Mon, 18 Mar 1996, Nick Shackleton wrote:

> 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
>