Klarinet Archive - Posting 000643.txt from 2001/09

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Basset horns
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:33:19 -0400

On Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:18:58 -0700, leeson0@-----.net said:

> Now all of this depends on the case made ca. 1910 being logical. Maybe
> the case maker had no idea of how much room to allow for a mouthpiece,
> but if he did, and if Howland was right, the standard b.h. mouthpiece
> should be shorter and have a wider bore.

I agree with this, and found it out myself a couple of years ago by way
of another sort of accident.

Many may not know, though Dan probably will, that Dvorak's Czech Suite
contains a solo usually played on the cor anglais, but that was almost
certainly originally for bassethorn. But because there are no clarinets
in the piece, it's usually done on the cor.

We were due to play the piece on period instruments, pitch A=435 Hz, in
a programme that also contained the Brahms first Serenade, and the
conductor was keen to reinstate the bassethorn. So I had to find an
instrument.

I was lucky. Nick Shackleton owns a German bassethorn, manufacturer
'Urban', that can be made to go very well at A=435, and he was willing
to lend it to me for the concert. Whilst fooling around with this, I
tried the largish bore wooden mouthpiece on my modern Boehm narrow-bore
Uebel bassethorn, which I could previously have characterised by saying
that it was a reluctant colleague of mine rather than a friend. But,
with the Urban mouthpiece, it became a friend!

Eddie Pillinger then made some resin copies of the mouthpiece, and I
believe that several people apart from myself have found them useful.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
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