Klarinet Archive - Posting 000849.txt from 1999/12

From: Shouryu Nohe <jnohe@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] RC Prestige
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 23:03:09 -0500

On Fri, 24 Dec 1999, David Renaud wrote:

> Any opinions on the RC Prestige
> vs R13, Vintage, Festival would be of interest.

I have not actually played an RC, but here's what I can tell ya.

I sit third chair in the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra. Our principal
plays a set of R13's, with a Ridenour/BayGold/V12 setup. He also holds a
doctorate in performance clarinet. He's played plenty of places and
stuff.

The second clarinettist has a master's in performance (and a doctorate in
German lit), and spent quite a few years playing in Germany. She stated
that the R13 was not available in Europe when she purchased her
instruments; therefore, she plays RCs. Her set up is
Johnston/BayRhodium/Oliveri.

I play an R13 Greenline with a Gennusa/BayRhodium/V12-or-GC setup. I have
no degree.

Both of them have tone lightyears past me. Go fig. But I prefer the
sound of the principal to the second. Is it horns? Is it setups? Is it
players? Can't really say - you make the call. But between those
players, the R13 sounds darker.

(I think it's the player, though, because the principal has played my horn
with my setup, and still sounds like him, not me. Dangonnit!)

> RC is not used much among players where I come from.
> Why is this so? They are very fine instruments.

Again, in my conversation with the second clarinetist, I asked if she
liked the RC's better than R13's, and she said she like them equally. She
did state, however, that having moved back to the States, having the RC
was problematic: the reason (she said) that the R13 was not sold in Europe
at the time was that there were TWO Buffet Pro models, the RC and the R13,
with one being sold here, and one there. (This was in 1974, I think she
said.) Why only sell one here and one there?

Because in Europe (and in the German symphonies she played in), they
played at 442, and Stateside at 440. She still plays her RCs, of course,
but with a Scott AA2 67 mm barrel on the Bb, and a AA2 66 on the A, so
that her pitch matches that of our R13s.

Now of course, this is all her word, and it is 25 years later...there have
probably been quite a few changes in the Buffets since....

J. Shouryu Nohe
http://web.nmsu.edu/~jnohe
Professor of SCSM102, New Mexico State Univ.
"If I wanted a 'job,' I'd have gone music ED, thank you very much!"

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