Klarinet Archive - Posting 000426.txt from 2000/01

From: "Robert S. Howe" <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Velveteen oboes
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 22:28:22 -0500

A correspondent wrote:
"I've played the same Loree since 1985 (and purchased it
>quite used) and loved it--until this summer. It had become the Velvateen
>Rabbit of oboes--comfy and loved but tattered and leaky and falling out
>of adjustment on what seemed like a daily basis. "

I played the same Loree (CY68) from 1973 to 1995. I loved it the whole
time and only realized that it was not perfect when (in 1995) I played a
friend's 10 year old Laubin in a pinch (my Loree was being repadded) and
got lots of comments from my unknowing friends about how fine I sounded
that night. I owned a new Loree 4 weeks later. Similarly, my Loree
English horn (GB93) seemed to me to be the finest made until I played a
new one at a rehearsal for the Poulenc Gloria last month.

You see, horns are like slippers, the longer you use them the better
they fit you (and you, them). The trap of getting more and more
comfortable with an instrument, which is itself getting less perfect
with the years, is very seductive. One could tell the story of the
legendary British oboist Leon Goosens, who used a 1910 Loree for some 50
years (except for a hiatus while it was recorved from a theft in the
1950s). How does one, especially an amateur, avoid this?

Robert Howe

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