Klarinet Archive - Posting 000333.txt from 2010/10

From: "Keith Bowen" <keith.bowen@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] H?
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:34:40 -0400

Sean,

I don't think there's any evidence for what you say about the type of
clarinet in Mozart's time. The five-key was the standard in Austria, indeed
French and English makers were a little more advanced. The eight-key was
introduced in England in 1800, and the thirteen-key not till Iwan Muller, in
Paris in 1811. This was the first instrument where the maker claimed
complete chromaticity. I do not think it is possible that the concerto or
quintet was written for anything other than a five key clarinet (plus the
keys for the necessary basset notes, whatever they were). Anyway, we have a
drawing of Stadler's basset clarinet from the Riga concert programme
including K622, in 1794 - it has about five keys plus a couple of basset
keys. Maybe one or two more because the drawing is not detailed enough, but
it is certainly not a thirteen-key instrument.

The source for this is Al Rice, The Clarinet in the Classical Period and
Eric Hoeprich, The Clarinet.

As to why they didn't add more ... there haven't exactly been a whole bunch
added since the Klose-Boehm system, have there! And the instruments were not
cheap, compared with the salary of a tradesman musician or of the budget of
a parsimonious court opera manager. Besides, you needed five of the damn
things! Not so easy to replace.

For the chromatic bits of the concerto and quintet, you had to manage with
cross fingerings. Perhaps Tony Pay could elaborate on what this takes, since
he does it?

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Osborn [mailto:feanor33@-----.net]
Sent: 30 October 2010 20:02
To: klarinet@-----.com
Subject: Re: [kl] H?

No, I wouldn't call a 5-key clarinet fully chromatic, but in Vienna,
for those operas, they had better clarinets.
Maybe Mozart was thinking of all the country places the Operas would
be performed.
I was thinking about the concerto which abounds with chromatic
scales, and was written for a 13-keyed instrument I believe, though
it was on the forefront of technology for the time.

Of course, this brings to mind the question I've always had: If they
realized that adding a key or two made the clarinet more versitile,
why did it take them 100 years to add enough? I would have added a
whole bunch more right away!

Sean

>Sean
>
>I wouldn't really call a 5-key clarinet fully chromatic, would you? In fact
>even where it could play the notes in sharp keys, the manuals of the period
>make clear that these notes were intended for trills, not for scalar
>passages. They show separate fingering charts for scales and trills, and
the
>former are much more restricted.
>
>Keith

www.osbornmusic.com

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