Klarinet Archive - Posting 000972.txt from 1998/02

From: Mitch Bassman <mbassman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Backwards clarinets
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:18:34 -0500

At 09:31 AM 2/25/98 -0500, Dan Paprocki wrote:
> I think Yamaha makes a backwards clarinet. If you check out their
>newest ad - it shows a person at a workbench working on a backwards
>professional clarinet. - I think this is the RN model Yamaha or the
>"reverse negative" model. I hope Yamaha is more careful with making
>clarinets than with advertising photos.

Hmmm, I think perhaps Yamaha is intentionally reversing all of the photos
to call attention to their instruments. And perhaps it's a contest: and the
first person to realize that wins a free clarinet. Would the Yamaha rep who
is monitoring this list for evidence of the winner please send me my free
instrument? I'd like a bass clarinet to low C.

My evidence is found on the cover of John Bruce Yeh's album "Clarinet
Sonatas by Easley Blackwood and Max Reger." (It's one of four Yeh CDs that
my brother gave me for a birthday gift last May. He, a hornist, and John
Yeh were roommates at Juilliard in the 70s. They played in a wind quintet
together.)

John Yeh plays three different Yamaha clarinets on this album, and they're
pictured -- in reverse -- on the cover:

- Blackwood: Sonata in a minor (Boehm-System clarinet in A)
- Reger: Sonata No. 3 in B-flat major (Oehler-System clarinet B-flat)
- Blackwood: Sonatina in F major (Boehm-System clarinet in E-flat)

The photo-reversal will be immediately obvious to any clarinetist.

Seriously, I highly recommend this album (Cedille Records CDR 90000 022).
Easley Blackwood is the pianist, so this world premiere recording of his
two pieces is clearly the definitive version. John Yeh's playing is
gorgeous. I think the Sonatina in F is my new favorite piece for E-flat
clarinet.

Quoting from the liner notes (I could not locate any copyright notice),
begin quotation:

I am very grateful to the Yamaha Company, which created the three clarinets
used on this recording. The Oehler-system, or "German-system," clarinet in
B-flat, played in the Reger Sonata, is typical if those widely used in
Germany and Austria. Its sound is characterized by a homogeneneous tone
quality and the tendency to a phrasing aethestic that emphasizes long,
smooth lines. The Boehm-system clarinets, pitched here in A and E-flat, for
Easley Blackwood's Sonata and Sonatina, respectively, employ the so-called
"French-System" fingering widely used by clarinetists around the world
(except in Germany and Austria). The slightly larger dimensions of the
reed, mouthpiece, and bore of the French-system instruments promote a
degree of flexibility and brilliance in the tone quality not emphasized by
German-system instruments. Hence, the French style performance aesthetic
tends more toward coloristic shading and tonal variety than the German style.
-- John Bruce Yeh

End quotation. I thought that explanation might be interest to readers of
KLARINET.

By the way, there is a photograph of Yeh and Blackwood inside the insert.
Yeh is holding the Oehler-system clarinet. The image is, surprisingly, not
reversed.

Again, to the Yamaha rep who is awarding the prize for revealing the
photo-reversal contest, please contact me directly by e-mail, and I'll tell
you where to send my free clarinet.

Mitch Bassman
Burke, Virginia, USA
mbassman@-----.com