Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-12-29 22:44
Even the Penzel-Mueller fan web site admits that the best regarded clarinets of that brand were the ones made in France. American orchestras in the early 20th century had mostly European players on European-made clarinets in the first-chair positions. Selmer, Henri Leroy, and Langenus in the New York Phil, Gaston Hamelin in Boston, and so forth. Langenus did have some limited success with his own brand of clarinet but I'm not sure where they were made. The Langenus mouthpieces were much more common and more often copied than the Langenus clarinets though. American mouthpiece makers did better, with Harry O'Brien and his family brand of mostly crystal pieces dominating the glass mouthpiece market. Other mouthpiece techs such as George Jenny (with Penzel-Mueller for a time), Otto Link, Everett Matson, Robert Miller, William Sumner, Glen Johnston, and the two Kaspars were very competent and highly regarded. Henri Chedeville's shop was in Philadelphia and his mouthpieces though made from C. Chedeville French blanks could be considered more "American" than French. Today, of couse, America probably has more clarinet mouthpiece techs per capita than any other nation. (Brad Behn, Walter Grabner, Greg Smith, Richard Hawkins, Mike Lomax, Clark Fobes, Theo Wanne, Ramon Wodkowski here and in England, et al.)
If Selmer had remained in the US instead of returning to Paris and letting George Bundy run the school instrument part of the operation over here, perhaps he and his clarinet producion might have become thorougly identified with America. Goodman, Artie Shaw, and all their imitators mostly played big bore Selmers in the 30s as did many American symphony players, but their entreprenurial talents did not include making their own line of clarinets. With the trumpet, the situation was different. Vincenz Shottenbach, a young Austrian trumpeter who had to hide his French Besson trumpet in a cave so his relatives could not see it, truncated his name to become Vincent Bach, moved to America and set up his own little trumpet factory in New York. Before long, Bach's brand of trumpet--modeled after Harry Glanz's French Besson--became the toast of the town, and he was receiving orders even from Russian orchestras and conservatories for legions of his Made-in-America instruments. For about 40 years, until he sold the company to Selmer, the Bach name was a virtual synonym for top brand classical trumpet.
So there is nothing in the American climate or drinking water that would prevent someone from making world class wind instruments here. (Haynes and Powell flutes, for instance). World class trumpets and trombones and world class flutes, so why not world class clarinets? Now, to be perfectly fair, Tom Ridenour does make good rubber clarinets and Guy Chadash makes fine pro level clarinets in the classical tradition of the Buffet R13. But I assume the poster means large scale manufacturing of pro instruments from the Eb soprano through the bass clarinet that would turn up prominently in orchestras and elsewhere and win the widespread approval of teachers in major conservatories and college music programs and that large numbers of players would be auditioning with. That hasn't happened. So I've gone full circle and join in asking why. Where is the equivalent of the American Bach trumpet--the made-in-America Bach clarinet?
Post Edited (2018-12-16 05:13)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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