Klarinet Archive - Posting 000204.txt from 2003/02

From: "CLARK FOBES " <reedman@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Mystery clarinets revisited
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 13:42:03 -0500

Fred,

For some reason my browser did not show the clarinets from the "front"
yesterday. I looked at the pictures again and clearly you have given us all
a very good picture.

These are, in fact, Albert system clarinets as Bill Hausmann pointed out.
The Albert System (after E. J. Albert of Brussels) are an adaptation of the
Iwan Mueller clarinets. Mueller is credited (or took credit!) for the
addition of seven new keys to the clarinet in 1813? and the addition of the
rings or so called "brille" keys. Oskar Oehler's adaptation of the Mueller
design was more complex and acoustically more sophisticated. Albert and
Oehler were two separate branches of clarinet making and one was not a
modification of the other.

I believe that generally Albert system clarinets were French bore and
Oehler clarinets are all German bore.

The best book so far on the technical development of the clarinet is "The
Clarinet" by Oskar Kroll. "Clarinet Acoustics" by O. Lee Gibson is an
interesting look at clarinet design, but the organization of the book does
not lend itself to a linear reading of the development of the clarinet. I
was extremely disappointed by Gibson's book. I was hoping that it would be
the definitive book on clarinet acoustics.

I know that my good friend Albert Rice has been working on a second volume
to his first book "The Baroque Clarinet". I believe Al plans the second
volume to be a very clear and thorough treatise on the development of the
clarinet from about 1750 to now.

CLARK FOBES
reedman@-----.com
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.

---------------------------------------------------------------------