 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-06-21 13:09
As a project for this summer, I am going to try to learn how to play the two Brahms Clarinet Sonatas on my Baermann clarinet, which as far as I can tell, is identical to what Mühlfeld first played them on. To complete the picture, I will try to get my pianist to use a Bachmann piano; Brahms' piano. Is there anybody out there that has attemted this experience and what did he or she gain from it or, better said, what did the music gain from it? Needless to say, there are bound to be people that find this more trouble than it's worth-for trouble it is!
Tony Pay-where are you when we need you?!
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-06-21 14:26
I heard Brahms championed Grotrian-Steinweg pianos - maybe that was much later on.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-06-21 15:53
How much later in Brahms's career could Op. 120 get?
Ken Shaw
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-23 04:16
Brahms has been played on period instruments and copies of period instruments not only by Eric Hoeprich but also by such clarinetists as Alan Hacker, Keith Puddy, Colin Lawson, Lorenzo Coppola, Lesley Schatzberger, and many more. Performances by Hacker are on YouTube.
Post Edited (2016-06-25 16:33)
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Author: donald
Date: 2016-06-25 13:26
Lorenzo Coppola was a student of Hoeprich, so I'm not sure he played it before him, and Klocker didn't play it on a 1890s clarinet.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-06-25 20:08
Dear Seabreeze; So the official term is an "Ottensteiner clarinet"? Well, that's seems to be what I have, and an original too. It has a very round, mellifluous sound. Now I just have to learn how to play it! I paid the very modest sum of 120 euros for it.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-06-25 20:27
I have played the Brahms sonatas a couple of times, but the difficulty is to find an appropriate pianist/period piano partner. With strings the difficulty is less, and in 1997 I played the Brahms quintet with the period group Hausmusik in the BBC Promenade concerts. It was in the Royal Albert Hall, which seats over 5,000 people, so even though we played it in the centre of the arena, it was something of a controversial venue especially for period instruments.
I used a Schwenk and Seggelke copy of Mühlfeld's Ottensteiner.
In 2000 we reprised the piece in a Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert, and this time I used Nick Shackleton's original Ottensteiner, which is an exact twin of Mühlfeld's A clarinet. I thought the original had a more interesting personality than my copy.
If you play on these instruments, you may be letting yourself in for some degree of difficulty. I was unable to get on with the mouthpieces that Jochen supplied, and had been using a casting of a Poschl mouthpiece. But for some reason that too wasn't working for the Brahms as we neared the date of the Prom concert, and I couldn't get hold of a suitably conically bored replacement.
In the end I constructed one by narrowing the bore of a cylindrical mouthpiece from the INSIDE: I put a helix of copper wire inside the tenon, with a spike projecting towards the reed, and a blob of blutak on the end. Varying position and dimension of this blob allowed me to mimic a conical bore to the required degree.
In addition to that, I discovered that the top joint of the instrument had shrunk, and decided after much hesitation to ream it out. Fortunately, all these things fell into place, and the concert was a success.
I found all that quite scary, live on the radio and all. And in performance, playing even a well adjusted instrument of this type requires an extra level of computation. Someone who has developed an ease with the instrument over years of acquaintance is in a different situation from someone who is coming to it later. You have to be consciously thinking fingerings, thinking embouchure and mouth cavity adjustments, more of the time than you would like. But I'd say the results have been worth the effort, for me.
And only you (and your audience) can answer whether that's been true for you.
Tony
Post Edited (2016-06-26 02:46)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-06-25 22:45
Ruben wrote:
>> So the official term is an "Ottensteiner clarinet"? Well, that's seems to be what I have, and an original too.>>
Lucky you. Can you post a photo?
Tony
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-06-26 01:14
Tony -
Thanks for the excellent posting. You showed great effort and ingenuity that really paid off.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-06-26 02:18
Thank you, Ken.
I should perhaps say that the copper wire and blutak solution was quickly consigned to the dustbin, and I now have a working system for my Ottensteiner that is probably much closer to the original.
With regard to other postings in this thread: the reason 'we', perhaps wrongly, call an Ottensteiner instrument 'an Ottensteiner' is that it is identical to the instrument made by Ottensteiner for Mühlfeld, its most famous exponent. So, the extra keys – RH thumb F#/C#, and LH alternative Bb/F and Ab/Eb – are included in the characterisation.
But Ottensteiner also made simpler instruments, and Seabreeze has posted photographs of some of them. It would be perfectly appropriate to play Brahms on these, even though they're not what Mühlfeld himself used. (Some contemporary players indeed removed the extra keys, according to Seggelke.)
By the way, when Thea King said, "You realise that Brahms NEVER SAW WHAT YOU HAVE IN FRONT OF YOU, DON'T YOU???" she was referring to the solo clarinet part.
Brahms may by accident have seen such a thing; but the remark was intended to remind the clarinet player that Brahms's conception was always of the mosaic of the entire score.
Tony
Post Edited (2016-06-26 03:41)
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-06-26 23:29
Dear Tony Pay: My clarinet looks nothing like the one in Seabreeze's photograph, but does look every bit like the picture on Stephen Fox's site, which is supposed to be Mülhfeld's clarinet or one similar to it. The make is: Hammerschmidt-Burgau Schwabe (as far as I can tell; the engraving is very faded). It is an ebony instrument. You are welcome to try it out or borrow it the next time I'm in England or the next time you're in France. This is provided they still let me into the country!
I'm using a standard modern German Viotto mouthpiece on it. Perhaps this isn't totally "historically informed", but seems to work well enough for my very modest purposes.
I thank all of you for your interest in this subject and your information. I hasten to add that if one can't find an appropriate piano to play these pieces with, the endeavour is rendered meaningless.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-27 01:24
Ruben,
The big photo I sent is a simpler 12 key Ottensteiner that shows one of the logos he used. The photo in Fox I sent is a Baermann system that, of course, has more keys. If your instrument looks like the one in the Fox photo, then it is probably a Baermann system, the sytem Muhlfeld played. But the logo on the 12-key system might help you identify if your Baermann was made by Ottensteiner or someone else. Muhlfeld's instuments are described as made of boxwood, not darker wood. Please put up a photo of what you've got so we can all see. Tony will know for sure if it's an Ottensteiner Baermann.
Post Edited (2016-06-27 06:22)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-06-27 01:36
Ruben,
Sorry if I confused you. As far as the keywork goes, your instrument should look like the one shown in the Fox article because that is a Baermann system instrument.
The big photo I sent was to let you see a close-up view of the five star flattened upside-down U logo that Ottensteiner put on a simpler, pre-Baermann 12-key clarinet. I don't know if he used the same logo on the Baermann clarinets that Muhlfeld played, but it would be interesting to find out.
As Fox says, Muhlfeld played boxwood instruments, not instruments made of ebony, but the boxwood could be stained to look darker. In fact there is a photo of what purports to be one of Muhlfeld's own Ottensteiners in what is probably dark-stained boxwood here that would not come up for me earlier:
http://www.uark.edu/ua/nc/ClarinetCollections/C.Kruspe/RichardMuhlfeldClarinet.htm.
Colin Lawson in his book on the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, refers readers to
plates 24 and 25 in Pamela Weston's "Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past" and the front cover and pages 26-7 of the periodical Clarinet and Saxophone 14/1 (1989) for detailed illustrations of the Muhlfeld Ottensteiner clarinet.
Hammerschmidt, of course, was a family of many different artisans that made (and still make) clarinets. From what you have described, you may have a Baermann (as opposed to the more complicated Oehler) system made by them.
Please put up a photo so we can see what you've got. Tony will know if it is a Baermann Ottensteiner and we can all appreciate the verdict.
Post Edited (2016-06-27 08:47)
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Author: ruben
Date: 2016-06-27 09:55
Dear Seebreeze,
Many thanks for your interest in the topic and your very informative remarks, up to your usual high standards. The last picture you sent me of Mühlfeld's clarinet looks just about like mine, though I imagine the maker is different, which accounts for a few minor differences. I wish I could send a picture. Unfortunately, I don't have a smart phone: just a stupid one. I'll try to get some help.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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