Author: sherman
Date: 2007-06-25 20:13
This reminds me of days gone by, of my youth more than 50 years ago, being sent to Paris by an anonymous donor, studying with Marcel Jean and Nadia Boulanger, and visiting the Selmer factory on several occasions, ferried there by Jean Selmer in the black cobra Citroen with the air suspension, totally without noise, lunching with the Selmers and visiting the factory. I remember the apprentice room where each of the dozen or so young people were no more than 13 or 14 years old, seeing the many clarinets and saxophones on the line and meeting with several of the key people.There was a machine which dispensed wine at break time. I always purchased several instruments to bring back to students, costing about 200 or 250 dollars, brand new in the case, At that time, the Mazzeo System didn't take much of the line of instruments and bells which I saw, but I have played many many since then, I think perhaps 60 or 70 instruments, even repairing them at one point. The bells of these instruments were never the focal point, in truth, they were a balance detriment.They made the clarinet feel strangely unbalanced though the evenessof the instrument was improved, and they made the middle B seem always thin and sharp, this in contrast to the many years of struggling to support the sound of the ordinary middle B, made stuffy and slightly flat by the metal which cut into the wood 3/8s of an inch. Mazzeo's teaching method was simple and without exception: "even" was the ideal, "even "was the answer, and all of the many different methods from which we all worked were with making the scale of the clarinet totally even, note to note.
Prior to this posting I had never seen 6 or 8 of these bells in a line. Now, I have seen them, and after having read the postings , I have only this to say. The people who have played on these pictured barrels or the others of which everyone speaks have not play-tested them one to the other to determine differences. Having said that one can only conclude that as the bells were made, there were either made from ordinary finished bells or not. We don't know. And for that matter, nobody has come up with a line of 6 regular Selmer bells in a row to determine if in fact visual differences exist. And if they had, what would the conclusions have been?
Having seen at the factory hundreds of clarinets being made by many many artisans, I would imagine the bell manufacture was analgous to the fellow at the station who changes your oil. It is not rocket science, and neither I think was the making of Mazzeo System bells.
Sometimes I would like to have the opportunity to spend a day testing all of the bells shown. I think that there would not be a definitive answer to the whys and wherefores as to the difference in the appearance of the Mazzeo System Bells. Could I have been aware in the difference in sound?
Was there any difference?
It seems as if there is more interest in Rosario Mazzeos contribution to the hardware of the clarinet now than there was back in 1955-57. It was a wonderful and practical invention. It should have been taken up and purchased by the clarinet fraternity. Because it was made on a Selmer instrument and because the world played Buffet at the time, there were only Selmer Mazzeo systems to try. And so, while there was talk of Yamaha being interested in the patents, when Rosario passed on, so too did the Mazzeo clarinet.
Sherman Friedland
Post Edited (2007-06-25 20:14)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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