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Re: Mouthpiece for Boosey & Hawkes Bb Bass Clarinet

Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2012-01-11 21:10

The B&H bass clarinets were pretty highly rated in the UK and used in many top orchestras.
I have heard comments that many pros thought they played much more like a soprano clarinet than most other makes.

From your photos the keywork looks near enough identical to that on my own B&H bass made in 1976.
The mouthpiece receiver on mine however measures 30mm and happily accepts standard mouthpieces e.g. Selmer, Vandoren, Yamaha, Conn etc.

B&H did in fact offer the option of low C on a few basses and mine has this factory made extension (same ser no on all body parts and in a B&H case fitted out to accept all the sections).

*** The instrument can be played as a low C bass or by removing the 3rd joint as a low Eb bass.

From the photos on Worrell's website it looks as though he has copied the factory design almost exactly however the 3 touch pieces below thumbrest are better executed and fitted with rollers, mine are just plain plates.

*** The bore of my bass does exhibit some flare towards the end of the middle section (in low E/F area) but the extension carrying the low Eb/D/Db reverts to the same parallel section (23.35mm) as the top joint.

These basses were only made in quite small numbers essentially by hand and even today in UK you will see them offered for in excess of £2000 ($3000) for the low Eb model and considerably more for the rarer low C model.

I haven't come across an ebonite version myself, I suspect not many were made as the Bass clarinet was not widely used in UK military bands during middle -later part of last century.
I agree with Chris P that it's likely they were at least as expensive as the wood version as that was certainly the case with the Imperial Bb models.

*** edits to original post

Post Edited (2012-01-11 21:30)

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