Klarinet Archive - Posting 000163.txt from 2000/01

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] recorders
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 14:33:26 -0500

I wrote,
>The recorder is the clarinet's reedless ancestor....>

Dee Hays wrote,
>>[T]o say the recorder is the reedless ancestor of the clarinet is
incorrect. The recorder is technically a "fipple flute" or "block flute."
It bears no ties to the clarinet. This can be seen by the fact that the
first register jump is the octave not the twelfth. Recorders were eventually
supplanted by the transverse flutes that we see today as the volume of the
recorder simply wasn't enough to cope with a mass of strings or with other
instruments like the oboe etc.>>

>>Primitive single reed instruments have been documented that even predate
the chalumeau. Something along the lines of a piece of cane tubing being cut
with one end split and modified to form a "mouthpiece/reed" result.>>

My statement was correct. The recorder is one of the clarinet's closest
ancestors. See Colin Lawson's essay, "Single reeds before 1750," available
in _The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet_, which he also edited (Cambridge
University Press, 1995), pp. 1-15. He is senior lecturer in music at the
University of Sheffield and has played principal clarinet with The English
Concert, The Hanover Band and the London Classical Players. He has written a
number of articles about the history of the clarinet, along with a book, _The
Chalumeau in Eighteenth- Century Music_.

Some reference sources, such as Robert Willaman's book, _The Clarinet and
Clarinet Playing_ (New York: Carl Fischer, 1954 and 1959), call the clarinet
an improvement on the chalumeau and more or less leave it at that. David
Pino's book with the same title, _The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing_ (New
York: Scribner's, 1980), states unequivocally, "The chalumeau was the direct
ancestor of the modern clarinet" (p. 194), though he goes on, over several
pages, to make clear that the evolution is less simple and linear than that
statement sounds. (Caveat: Pino did serious research, but the reader must
beware of his post hoc reasoning and his questionable deductions made from
ambiguous or insufficient evidence.)

Lawson's essay, however, is the best I've seen on the origin of the clarinet
and the chalumeau. He says that medieval writers used "chalumeau" loosely
and inconsistently, to refer to various types of simple pipe instruments.
However, before the paragraph I quote below, Lawson explains that he refers
here to the later, 18th century chalumeaux.

Lawton says (p. 3), "Musical sources indicate that Majer's four chalumeaux
corresponded in size to sopranino, descant, treble and tenor recorders,
though sounding an octave lower on account of the acoustical properties of
the cylindrical stopped pipe. Majer notes that the fingerings closely
resemble those of the recorder, though its range is not much more than one
octave; if one can play the recorder, the chalumeau is quite easy. Such
comparisons of the two instruments, as well as their physical similarity,
lend credence to the hypothesis that the chalumeau derived from the recorder,
perhaps during attempts to increase its dynamic range." The range of a
recorder of that era (as today), is two octaves, or a bit more for a skilled
player. In that sense, the chalumeau represented a step backwards.

Lawton describes many correspondences between 18th century chalumeaux and the
clarinet that Johann Christoph Denner and some unknown, slightly earlier
inventor (of the clarinet known as the "mock trumpet") designed along similar
general lines. Lawton disagrees with F. G. Rendell that "chalumeau" and
"clarinet" were synonyms in the 18th century (though some writers unfamiliar
with the distinctions ignorantly used the two words as synonyms). He cites
persuasive evidence that they were different instruments from the beginning
of the history of the clarinet. The 18th century chalumeau and the clarinet
co-existed for many years of their development. Lawton regards the clarinet,
not as a twin of the chalumeau or a child of the chalumeau, so much as a
slightly younger sibling. In other words, the clarinet's evolution is not
linear. The clarinet is inbred. Think of a horse breeder "breeding back" a
mare to her grandsire, in turn the progeny of his own grandsire's
half-brother.

Denner didn't just take a chalumeau, alter the mouthpiece and add a register
hole. He seems to have started over from the recorder, with its superior
range, then incorporated features of the chalumeau, which already included
some features of the recorder combined with some features of the older
idioglot pipes and other instruments. The mouthpiece with the single free
reed derives in part from the idioglot reed, but it's a huge improvement to
be able to replace a free reed, which is fairly simple to manufacture, while
keeping the more durable mouthpiece, which is a lot more trouble to
manufacture.

See also the entry under "Clarinet: History" in Vol. 2 of _Grove's Dictionary
of Music and Musicians_, fifth edition (St. Martin's Press, 1959), which
notes (p. 321) that, "The primitive 2- key instrument by J. C. Denner
resembles externally a recorder." In addition to other similarities,
Denner's clarinet "narrows towards the lower end" like a recorder. That is a
really striking difference between the Denner clarinet and our modern
clarinet. Our flared bell is a later addition. "Denner's vital discovery was
the speaker hole, making available the series of twelfths." However, as Colin
Lawton points out, that register break of a twelfth also had a predecessor,
in an ancient Greek wind instrument.

As is apparent from the pictures in both Lawton and Grove's, the early Denner
clarinet looks like a recorder except for the mouthpiece. As Lawton
observes, though the head joints or mouthpieces of these instruments differ
considerably, the basic fingering systems of simple flutes (whistles),
idioglot reed pipes, fipple flutes, chalumeaux and clarinets are so similar
that a person who plays one can quickly learn the fingering for all. Even
today, after all those keys added to the modern clarinet, most of the
naturals (as written on a treble staff) on a C-pitched recorder are fingered
the same as those (written) notes in the clarinet clarino register from
mid-staff C up to the first A above the staff. (Here I rely on personal
experience, not research, since I've played the recorder since 1962 and the
clarinet since 1957.) The F# on the top line of the staff is also fingered
the same. Even the first B and C above the staff are technically playable on
a recorder with the same fingerings as on a clarinet, though they're
dreadful, off-pitch notes, better fingered otherwise. Similarly, it's
possible, though rarely the best choice, to use several of the recorder's
forked fingerings as alternate fingerings for sharps and flats on clarinet.

Lelia
"Being absolutely positive is nothing but being wrong at the top of your
lungs."
--Dad

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