Klarinet Archive - Posting 000047.txt from 1997/03

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: who played it first???
Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 16:43:39 -0500

On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Sherri wrote:

> Someone named Denner

Johann Christoph Denner, to be more specific, although this is
not a solid fact. Nobody knows with complete certainty whether
or not Denner was actually the orginal inventor of the clarinet,
but he is cited more often than the other candidates of the
very early 1700's. The clarinet was the result of an accident
with a chalumeau (a sort of recorder with a reed), where the reed
was placed askew on the mouthpiece and suddenly an entirely new
range was discovered with overtones excited above the fundamentals
in the overtone series. The instrument's name is derived from the
characteristic sound which the new "extended-range chalumeau"
generated, sounding a lot like a clarino trumpet of the day. It
was first called a "mock trumpet", in fact, then called a
"clarionet", which was probably shortened to "clarinet" shortly
thereafter. It retained the term "chalumeau" to describe its
fundamental register, which is what the clarinet would be without
the register vent to excite the overtones.

Neil

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