Klarinet Archive - Posting 000391.txt from 1998/08

From: NGSH50E@-----.com ( CHUCK WEST)
Subj: [kl]Buffet Festival
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 23:43:00 -0400

Well Victor, my understanding is that the Buffet Festival is the same
basic polycylinidrical bore as the R-13, with the silver keys,
lefthand E-flat key and adjustable thumb rest like the Prestige
clarinets. The Festival's hole placement is different from the R-13
however, for example, the register key vent is about 3mm. higher on
the tube (and many other fine points). The wood is wonderful, like
the Prestige.

I play a couple of Festival B-flats (and an old R-13 A). From my
(subjective) point of view, it's a smoother clarinet than the R-13
across the breaks--if you're interested, my last 4 CD's on the
Klavier label have been on the Festival--KCD 11073, 11072, 11080 and
11088. The best of those is the D'Indy, Brahms & Muczynski trios on
11088. The three before that on Wilson are on an R-13, and the
mouthpiece/reed/ligature setups haven't changed all that much, so one
could compare.

Again my opinion (with 75 cents might buy coffee in a cheap
restaraunt) is that the Festival does the good things that the Opus
does, but (for me) is more colorful at the high end of the dynamic
range.

Hope this helps you, Victor. Best wishes.

Chuck

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