Klarinet Archive - Posting 000285.txt from 2000/12

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Antique clarinets in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 20:45:31 -0500

During a weekend with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Kevin and I
visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. We went to (dare I mention this...?)
a special exhibit, "Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar." The exhibit
included more than 130 guitars, from the Renaissance to the present.

We also looked at the museum's regular musical instruments exhibit, in one of
the museum's smallest galleries. The wind instruments include an Adolphe Sax
alto sax ca. 1844; a suona from which I was finally able to obtain the
details of what the reeds for my suonas ought to look like; a serpent that
may be the one Doug Yeo has played in Boston concerts; a bass ophicleide; a
gorgeous bass recorder made of boxwood with a brass C key ca. 1700 by Johann
Christoph Denner; and a fancy German alto recorder made of heavily carved
ivory with the head joint carved into a dolphin's head, ca. 1710.

The clarinet family there includes a Raymond Griesbacher basset horn, made in
Vienna, of boxwood, ivory and brass. Another clarinet is about the size of a
clarinet in A. Michel Amingue of Paris made it, ca. 1794, of ebony, ivory
and brass. It has 5 keys (oblong and flat, made of bare brass), with the
wooden mouthpiece turned the opposite of the way we play it, so that the reed
would touch the upper lip. The clarinet that interested me most was an
Italian bass clarinet by Nicola Papalini (no date), made of pearwood with
three brass keys. The shape was partially serpentine, in tight bulges, so
that it bore a disquieting resemblance to a short section of intestines, but
slightly flattened. The fingertips would cover some of the holes while other
holes would lay under other parts of the fingers. This clarinet was,
overall, shorter than a modern alto clarinet. The idea seemed similar to a
bass racket, which produces startlingly low bass tones from a small-looking
instrument. From the bulges, I couldn't tell whether the single piece of
wood on the outside might conceal a labyrinth of separate chambers inserted
down the bore, as in a racket. I couldn't guess at how to finger a scale.

This collection has discontinued publishing a booklet, so that the only
information readily available to the public now appears on the small cards in
the displays. The cards didn't specify what keys any of these clarinets play
in, alas. The museum has a web site, http://www.mfa.org, but the only
instrument I could find discussed there was the fine Broadwood piano, the
first known model with six full octaves.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~
On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

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