 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: tucker ★2017
Date: 2017-12-29 03:12
With the conversations regarding the return of Leblanc.... I started wondering why the US never made a professional line of clarinet.... any ideas?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: zhangray4
Date: 2017-12-29 06:06
[I have deleted this post because a person or multiple people were offended]
-- Ray Zhang
Post Edited (2017-12-29 08:48)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2017-12-29 06:52
Ray Zhang,
I am a bit puzzled by your comments above concerning "we Americans..." particularly your mention of WWI and WWII. I really don't take your words as an obvious joke.
What is your basis for these assertions? Quite simply, why would you say such things on a thread about clarinet production?
HRL
Post Edited (2017-12-29 06:53)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: TrueTone
Date: 2017-12-29 07:16
Wouldn't Penzel-Mueller count for that? I know some of their clarinets are rather nice (i.e. the Brilliante or Artist.) from some posts on here, but I don't know how nice that would be compared to another pro level clarinet, as I've never played a P-M.
Post Edited (2017-12-29 07:18)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2017-12-29 08:24
Maybe not for the clarinet yet, but other US instruments have lead the world. Gibson for one. The list is long. The drum division. Part of the clarinet, such as some mouthpieces and barrels I think the US leads the way. For example the 1000's of Kaspar mouthpieces were made by Babbitt! I think the best clarinet pads are surely made in the US.
It's getting to the point where it's hard to find anything totally made in one country. I have a wicked fast Dodge Challenger 0 -60 in 3.5 seconds, something nuts like that, but the car is not made in the US. Some of it is made in Mexico and in Canada.
At one point Yamaha was buying mouthpieces from Babbitt. I wish they still were. So I have no issues with several countries working together to make great products or a company/person making a special part for an instrument.
Some Gibson guitars sell for $100,000 at auctions. Hard to believe. Maybe the right person just hasn't popped up yet. We know for sure that some people are on the right track such as Guy Chadash in NYC and Tom Ridenhour who made some amazing horns at Leblanc and makes some really great horns now.
With Buffet making horrible horns who knows what will happen in the near future. A lot of players have had enough with Buffet. Some small company may hire a talented designer and craftsman and a new great clarinet will arrive at an affordable price and maybe not out of wood that sounds and tunes better than anything on the market.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
Post Edited (2017-12-29 08:27)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: zhangray4
Date: 2017-12-29 08:47
I'm sorry if my previous post was a little inappropriate. I really meant it as a joke and did not mean to offend anyone, so therefore I have removed it.
Forgot for a second I was on Clarinet BBoard and not on some teen social networking site.
By the way I am American, so that's why I said "we Americans."
My greatest apologies.
-- Ray Zhang
Post Edited (2017-12-29 08:50)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mbh
Date: 2017-12-29 08:53
I have pondered this myself, but don't have a great answer....
The US clearly has a major position in the manufacture of brass instruments (Bach trumpets and trombones, Conn horns etc.) and flutes (Haynes, Powell et al), but clearly not so much in clarinets, saxes, oboes, and bassoons which have historically been dominated by European manufacturers. Interestingly, Japan via Yamaha has been making inroads in brass, oboes, clarinets, and flutes while several smaller Japanese manufacturers (eg Muramatsu, Miyazawa, Altus, Sankyo) have built a stellar reputation in flutes. Now, of course, we see the rise of Chinese and Taiwanese serious instrument makers. Not everything coming out of China any more is a CSO.... And to make matters even more complex/interesting, Haynes is now owned by Eastman, an Asian company, and Powell is owned by Buffet...
I wonder how much, if any, The US tradition in silversmithing/metalworking has to do with the situation.
Mitch
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
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)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Jeroen
Date: 2017-12-29 23:34
Well, until WWII Conn made some nice clarinets. However, I don't know if they made other pitches than Bb. It is a pity that Conn focused on band instruments later. Probably easier to make money with.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: TrueTone
Date: 2017-12-30 00:26
Oh, I didn't know some P-Ms were french, I guess that counts some of them out,if their lack of popularity then didn't.
Also Langenus's clarinets were supposedly made by F Hofinger, of Brussels, so they're Belgian, not American.
What mbh said earlier in the topic sounds like it's probably a good explanation of one of the reasons why the US hasn't made a lasting impression in pro (wooden) clarinets, that the US was mainly known for silversmithing and working with other metals, as most of the american clarinets I've heard of that aren't student level are metal, which is now not really used in clarinet bodies. (i.e. Conn, Buescher, King, PM, Bettoney, and Haynes metal clarinets were well known.)
I do know Conn made decent enough HR and wood Clarinets up until the late 40s, though; I've got a model 444N that looks fairly well made; but it's not playable right now and has a really short (around 60mm) HR barrel with it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: seabreeze
Date: 2017-12-30 01:28
At their peak, Conns would have been very good instruments, but most of the pro players in that day--though they may have owned Conns--preferred to play in public and record on one of the competing Selmer models: The Selmer BT Balanced Tone, The Radio Improved, or the CT Center Tone. Those really took the clarinet world by storm, with the Conns hovering in the background. That's certainly one reason Conn eventually left the pro market. The competition from Selmer Paris was too much.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2017-12-30 03:56
The "Leblanc by Backun" were professional instruments produced by Conn-Selmer in the US. Only the barrel and bell were made by Backun.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ursa
Date: 2017-12-31 12:35
Pruefer was a competent American builder of clarinets. While the vast majority of their output was unremarkable student models, their middle and top range models could be very well done, with voicing that works particularly well for big band playing.
That, however, turned out to be a problem with the decline of big bands and dance bands. Very few people today would consider a Pruefer as appropriate for classical clarinet study, much less performance.
Still, for the jazz musician or for the saxophonist looking for a clarinet to double on, they continue to offer interesting possibilities.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
