Klarinet Archive - Posting 000482.txt from 1996/07

From: Nick Shackleton <njs5%cam.ac.uk@-----.BITNET>
Subj: Re: Muhlfeld's clarinets
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:11:56 -0400

>To: Drew Niemeyer <s182855@-----.au>
>From: njs5@-----.uk (Nick Shackleton)
>Subject: Re: Muhlfeld's clarinets
>Cc:
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>Do you have access to either the CASS magazine or the CLARINET magazine
from the USA? Our article on the instruments was published in both.
>It is (I'm sure you realise) very difficult to verbalise the sound of an
instrument. I suppose I'd start by saying "German-sounding".
>The mouthpieces are wooden (Muhlfeld's own); there are two and they both
work. I play German Reform Boehm clarinets so I am accustomed to a German
lay and always have German style reeds with me. I think I'd have described
the sound as at the mellow, warm end of traditional German.
>Keith used a copy of a similar mouthpiece that we were able to borrow but
there was no attempt to replicate Muhlfeld's lay and I suspect that this may
have something to do with the different sound quality when it came to the
recording. I was not present at the recording but Keith himself felt that
the recording itself did not do a good job of replicating the real sound.
That is a second factor.
>It is worth mentioning that I own a clarinet very similar indeed to
Muhlfeld's A clarinet, which provided something for Keith to practise on.
Subsequently Tony Pay performed the Brahms quintet on my instrument and I
felt that he produced the sort of sound that I felt Muhlfeld's clarinets
were "trying to make". The lay he used was based on my measurements of
Muhlfeld's lay. He at the time described the event as the most exciting
thing he'd ever done from the point of view of the instrument on his
performance and his violinist wife Suki said something similar. I mention
this because although it is frequently stated "player X makes the same sound
whatever instrument he plays on" I think the other side of the coin is that
some instruments more than others have a very distinct sound if given half a
chance, and of all the "multi-keyed" clarinets I know I thing that this
model is the one that most "has a will of its own" as regards tone colour.
I'm going to post this reply on the list in case there's somebody there who
remembers this from the time I showed the instrument at the Clarinet
congress in Quebec a few years ago.
>>
>>Nick,
>>
>>I read your note to the klarinet list explaning that the sound in the Brahms
>>recording by Kieth Puddy was not what you thought it would be.
>>I was wondering if you could give me a little more information about this
>>(if you don't mind) - i.e. what the clarinets sounded like when you first
>>heard them played.
>>
>>I am currently trying to complete a research project ( University of
>>Queensland, Australia) ; my topic covering, among other things, Brahms'
>>clarinet sonatas, and how they sounded at the time.
>>If you know of any articles written about this, specifically, or about
>>the discovery of the clarinets, could you please let me know.
>>
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Drew Niemeyer
>> <s182855@-----.au>
>>
>>
>>PS. Or review of Kieth Puddy's recording ?
>>
>>
>>
>
Nick Shackleton, University of Cambridge, Godwin Laboratory,
Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RS, UK
phone: (44) 1223 334876
fax: (44) 1223 334871
home phone 1223 311938
e-mail: NJS5@-----.uk

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org