Klarinet Archive - Posting 000307.txt from 2002/03

From: Tom.Henson@-----.com
Subj: RE: [kl] Boosey and Hawkes
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 17:14:23 -0500

I say we should take and wait and see attitude about a pending sale of
Boosey and Hawks. It could actually be a good thing.

Many times, just before a company is sold, all investment in the quality of
a product will cease as the owners look for someone to bail them out. R&D
becomes an uncessary expense as well as maintaing the machinery to produce
the product.

I remember back in the 70's when Buffet was still owned by someone from
Chicago I think, the same thing was said when Boosey and Hawks bought Buffet
back then.

I was in Paris at the time and had the opportunity to talk with several
people who were intimate with the company. As bad as it was for a Frenchman
to accept that Buffet was owned by an Amercan company, it was worse for an
English company to own them, or so they felt at the time.

I have to admit that some quality did suffer at the time, mainly the aging
of the wood and the plating of the keys which were both reduced drastically
after Boosey took over.

Boosey eventually poured everything into the Buffet manufacturing side and
ceased making their own clarinets soon after.

Peter Eaton, from London, purchased a lot of their left over machinery and
raw materials for a song. Now he makes one of the best clarinets available
today based upon the old Boosey models. How Ironic.

Buffet did survive and is still considered one of the best clarinets in the
world today. How well they would compare against the way things used to be
done 30-40 years ago is another story.

I don't want to start a post of how things were better in the old days or
why, but given the world economy that we have today, it is tough to build
quality products and still make a profit. Sooner or later, something has to
give.

I have a Festival Greenline which I think is a vision toward the future of
clarinet manufacture and it does not suffer as far as I can see sound wise.
Again, Buffet is the only one doing this.

Tom Henson

Ed Maurey said << It looks like we can safely look forward to a sharp
decline in the quality
Buffet clarinets. Magavox once owned Selmer. The results were disasterous.
>>

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