Klarinet Archive - Posting 000679.txt from 2003/07

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] basset horn vs. basset clarinet vs. extended clarinet
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:44:35 -0400

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 21:03:15 EDT, Elgenubi@-----.com said:

> Tony wrote:
>
> > With a modern orchestra, at A=440Hz, I play a basset clarinet which
> > is a boxwood clarinet of around 1850 by the maker Doelling of
> > Potsdam, extended to low C by Ted Planas. It used to belong to Alan
> > Hacker, and there is a picture of it in Brymer's book.
>
> I think this is particularly interesting, Tony. I enjoy looking at
> the old instruments in the plates in the clarinet history books, but I
> always sadly imagine them sitting on a museum shelves gathering dust.
> I was reading Brymer just last week about the 13 key clarinets; and I
> was wondering about that particular one. Who was Planas?

An English clarinettist / genius craftsman.

> Was the extension made in the 1960's or 70's when the scholarship on
> the use of a bassett clarinet in the Mozart was firming up?

Yes, it was done around 1970, I guess. I bought it from Lesley
Schatzberger, who had it from Alan, in 1990 or thereabouts.

> Are there particular tuning issues to get it to play at 440 Hz?

No, it goes quite happily at that pitch, and probably was designed to.

See further:

http://www.woodwind.org/Databases/Logs/1998/09/000995.txt

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Sorry... my mind has a few bad sectors.

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