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A weakness for Penzel Mueller

Author: Bill
Date: 2019-01-29 05:04

In 1996 I bought a PM "Brilliante" and less than a year later sold it. It weighed less than any other Bb clarinet I had ever held in my hand, and the key work seemed like costume jewelry. It was too "thick" and hopelessly ill positioned and sluggish. A horror.

But a horror with a genuine alligator case, and an adjusting "screw driver" (proper term?) that came with it standard, and which I still use today. I went on a camping trip to Green Ridge State Forest in northern Maryland and clutched the case as we drove down a 60-degree angle dirt road dropping down to the meandering Potomac. Later, as a fire was starting over which we'd cook our supper of peanut-encrusted chicken, I played a few etudes sitting at a picnic bench. I used a Selmer crystal mouthpiece made in Italy. A bee stung me on the lip. Somehow, this is a cherished memory.

I had a brief correspondence with Lisa Mueller-Gannon, a relative of the maker.

So I bought another Penzel Mueller and it arrived in the mail today. Identical scenario. This one is an "Artist" model with a 17xxx serial number that Molloy (remember him?) assures me is the very best era PM made. Register key sticks. Side G# sticks. I know who did the restoration work and he is good. It's not the tech's fault.

Yet I am bizarrely, inexplicably happy to own a PM clarinet again. I can explain precisely why I love a 19xxx series Buffet or an L- or M-series Selmer or an early 1950s Leblanc. The PM thing is entirely subjective.

Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)

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