Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-07-17 01:59
We are so used to the standard Boehm, which has remained relatively stable in its key and ring arrangement for over a century, that we need a different orientation to the 13-key clarinet of Iwan Muller, which was very much a "work in progress" and just didn't stay put the way the Boehm has. Henry Lazarus played a clarinet made by Eugene Albert, probably similar to the one shown here: https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/record/14995?highlight=albert.
That modification of the Muller clarinet had only 2 rings. But it was not long before Albert himself added more rings for a total of at least 4, and he and other designers were busy making more improvements on subsequent models leading to 5-ring Alberts. From the 1860s till around 1900 there must have been many classical players using some version of these. Buffet was making Albert system clarinets before, during, and after the introduction of their Boehm system, which took some time to catch on. Osker Oehler was making relatively simple system clarinets BEFORE he decided to add all the bells and whistles that now appear on the German and Oehler clarinets. When I heard that Marie Ross had recorded the Brahms sonatas on "Oehler" clarinets, I made the mistake of asking why she didn't use the Baermann/Ottensteiner instruments, and she correctly put me straight by replying that the Oehler-built instruments she used WERE Ottensteiner system, not the later Oehler system. So in other words not all Oehler clarinets are Oehler system. The Albert instruments also changed with time, and I believe one of the last of the Albert family also made some Albert Boehm system clarinets!! Accurate history of music instruments is complex and not to be represented with cliches and facile generalities.
The LSU Jazz Museum in New Orleans has in its musical collection clarinets owned by Larry Shields, Lorenzo Tio, and Leon Roppolo that I have seen:Shields' Albert has 2 rings, Tios' has 4 rings, and Roppolo's has 5. https://www.twitter.com/nolajazzmuseum/status/974694651860054016/photo/2. So the evolution of the instrument continued in the jazz world. Clarinet collector Eberhard Kraut shows photos of "Full Albert" Selmers from 1920 or 30 that have 6 rings and a quite full panoply of keys. The non-German clarinet world made Boehms and Alberts, in ways probably not much influenced by Oehler, but in the German/Austrian world, the Albert and the Ottensteiner instruments were modified by Oscar Oehler and kindred craft people to match a different tonal ideal and emerge as the Oehler instrument.
Michelle Zukofsky would know exactly which system Simeon Bellison played.
Post Edited (2020-07-18 00:21)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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