 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: el gitano
Date: 2018-12-08 20:23
Attachment: K.L.LEROY.png (193k)
Hi,
¿anybody knows anything about "K.L.LEROY Paris New York" mouthpieces?
It´s made by rubber for a Bb clarinet.
I cannot find anything about this maker o seller.
Thank´s for all informations,
regards from Spain
Claus
sorry, now it´s for second time posted
Post Edited (2018-12-08 20:25)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-12-09 06:18
The maker is Henri Leroy, so it's H. Leroy, not K. Leroy. Mr. Leroy was principal clarinet in the New York Philharmonic over a century ago. He followed Alexandre Selmer into the orchestra in 1912 (Selmer was principal from 1909 to 1911 under Gustave Mahler) and did the American premiere of the Debussy Rhapsody. Later, back in his native France, he worked for Alexandre Robert in Robert's shop, making and testing clarinets. He seems to have taken over the operation of Robert clarinets after Robert departed. His mouthpiece could date from as long ago as the 1920s. This Leroy could be made from the same excellent type of rubber that went into other brands of mouthpieces that were made in the late 20s and 30s and are now collector's items, including Robert, Chedeville, Meliphone, Vega, and Bettoney. How well a given Leroy mouthpiece will perform depends on many things, including how many hands have altered the original dimensions and how well the mouthpiece has aged. Some players say the Leroy pieces have great flexibility in going across the middle (throat register to clarion) and upper (clarion to altissimo) "breaks." Others say that while they produce a beautiful tone, they don't necessarily project that well. I've never had the luck to personally try one. If you own one in good condition and don't want to keep it, you probably will have no difficulty selling it.
Post Edited (2018-12-09 08:54)
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Author: el gitano
Date: 2018-12-10 19:52
Hi seabreeze,
thank´s a lot for the whole information you give me and the comunity.
Regards
Claus
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2018-12-10 20:21
I take it this would be machine faced. I wonder how much hand facing and customized bore reaming was done in the early 20 th century. We of course had the famous Kaspar mouthpieces and Everett Matson but who else did it? Now of course we have a selection of fine craftsman. Perhaps you could always find a local person to tweak a mouthpiece or do it yourself.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Episkey
Date: 2018-12-11 01:09
Let me know if you're ever going to part with that Leroy. .
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-12-11 05:35
We need a lot more academic scholarship to be devoted to the early history of clarinet mouthpiece design and refacing in America and elsewhere. I for one would like to know the dimensions of the crystal mouthpiece H. Klose reputedly played and recommended. Somewhere in my notes I cribbed the name "Charly" but have never gotten very far with that. I can tell you that some names to reckon with in the US before the Kaspars and Matson were Harry E. O'Brien (lived from 1884 to 1957), Wolfe Tanninbaum, Otto Link, Robert Jenny, and Ben Harrod. O'Brien played in the bands of Sousa and Bohumir Kryl (a cornet virtuoso) and made and adjusted mouthpieces for many of their players. He wrote a few amusing accounts of some of the odd requests he got such as making a mouthpiece that produced a tone "as if covered by a veil." All of this and more deserves far better and more detailed documentation than is currently available. I'm pretty sure that those old facings, H, HS, A, and A* (and maybe the S also) on Selmer mouthpieces with the logo at the bottom and the big A-shaped chamber inside were hand faced, at least some of the time, by Alexander Selmer or his brother Henri. In Paris, Henri Paradis (who was making recordings as early as 1901) had a few mouthpieces that bore his name and those may have been hand faced. Some Alelandais, Vega, Robert, and Leroy may have been as well. According to Ramon Wodkowski, the Woodwind Company in New York was instrumental in making a machine that could face mouthpieces with little human intervention or finishing (see his blog for more). I should imagine that before developments in mechanical engineering of this kind, all mouthpieces were faced and refaced by hand-- sometimes skillfully, often, perhaps, less so.
Post Edited (2019-09-08 18:22)
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