Klarinet Archive - Posting 000995.txt from 1998/09

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] Bassett
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 04:50:16 -0400

On Fri, 25 Sep 1998 19:50:07 -1300, leeson@-----.edu said:

> > From: MX%"klarinet@-----.68
> > Subj: [kl] Bassett
>
> >
> > In a message dated 9/25/98 3:15:46 PM, Tony Pay writes:
> >
> > <<Of course, every instrument has its defects, and sometimes a
> > player finds it worth putting up with some non-workability in one
> > area, and getting round it, for the sake of greater workability in
> > another. >>
> >
> > Spoken by one who has played (and recorded) on every period of
> > clarinets out there! By the way, when you perform the Mozart on a
> > new instrument, are you using your regular A clarinet with an
> > extension?
>
> Tony will, of course, answer for himself, but it so happens that when
> he did K. 622 with San Francisco, he was my house guest and I had
> occasion to see and inspect the instrument. It was an off the shelf A
> basset clarinet by Selmer. Played like a dream!

Hi Dan!

Thanks for your kind words. Actually, though, it wasn't off the shelf.
We moved lot of the holes in the extension on the suggestion of the
British clarinettist and genius artisan Ted Planas. (He'd worked with
Selmer on the prototype, but was never really satisfied with the
production model.) The actual work of moving the holes was undertaken
by the craftsman Jon Steward, who works at T W Howarth in London, and is
responsible for the new Howarth clarinet, which is still being
developed.

But that was a long time ago, and I sold that instrument about a year
after staying with you (thanks again!) to Joy Farrall. I think she's
recorded the Mozart on it, too, so you can hear it in other hands.

I now never play the Mozart on a new instrument! At A=440, with a
modern orchestra, I use the instrument that Alan Hacker had Ted Planas
'bassetize' in the 70s. It's a German instrument of around 1850 by
Dolling (umlaut over the 'o'), that has (now) 10 keys plus the 4 basset
keys. It's quite powerful enough even with a substantial orchestra,
though anyway, in my view, the piece is better if the orchestra isn't
too large.

The story goes that Ted got the brass for the basset keys from an old
water-closet, so perhaps that accounts for the delightful gurgling
quality this particular instrument brings to passages in the low
register:-) Be that as it may, you can't tell from examining the
instrument which keys are original and which were added, so perfectly
has Ted copied the style of the cups and fittings.

Ted is sadly no longer with us. It's a great loss, because he was
responsible for very many fine instruments and was a never-failing
resource when one was in difficulty. He understood clarinets very
deeply.

I actually bought the instrument not from Alan, but from Lesley
Schatzberger, whom you can hear as first clarinet in John Eliot
Gardiner's recordings with the English Baroque Soloists and the
Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339

... No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.

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