Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-09-22 16:15
I would submit that there have been NO significant improvements (at least in the Boehm system) in clarinet design in the last 100 years. Last year I acquired, restored and eventually sold, after playing myself for a couple of months, a turn-of-the-century Jerome Thibouville-Lamy full-Boehm "A" clarinet that was the equal in every respect to any top modern instrument. The mechanism, intonation, response and tone were not significantly different from a comparable brand-new clarinet, and the materials and workmanship were superior. I've owned and played many clarinet which were slightly "newer" (say, 70-80 years old) than the JTL, and they are essentially indistinguishable from new clarinets in all the important ways.
Not to be purposely controversial, but I would submit that the Boehm clarinet design was essentially fully-developed around the late 1800s/early 1900s and has not changed significantly since.
On the other hand, there have been significant developments along the German-system and Reform Boehm-system paths in the last 100 years.
As for polycylindrical bores, I consider them more of a marketing tool than a significant design change. This modification fixes some intonation problems (which can and have been fixed in other, standard ways) while creating some new ones of its own. If it were such a great leap forward, then Buffets and the other brands which have adopted polycylindrical bores should play much better in tune than in fact they do.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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