Author: Micke Isotalo ★2017
Date: 2024-02-22 13:05
The term Reform Boehm (or Reform Böhm) was originally coined by Wurlitzer, when they first started making clarinets with German bore/French fingering (as their Webb-page says, "The Reform-Boehm Clarinet was invented more than 80 years in our house"). For a long time they have had three such models, the 188, 187 and 185. Only the 185 has the articulated C#/G# and forked Eb/Bb, but all three are still called Reform Boehms (scroll down at https://wurlitzerklarinetten.de/clarinets/?lang=en).
Also later makers of such clarinets, such as Leitner & Kraus, Dietz and Harald Hüyng are all using the RB term in the same way - for a great variety of models with differing keywork, but with the German bore and French fingering in common.
Only Scwenk & Seggelke has obviously deliberately chosen not to use this term, and thus just calling their equivalent as "French mechanic with a German bore" (their model 3000) - perhaps to distance them a bit from the Wurlitzer "realm"?
At some point what was commonly considered as "true criteria" for a Reform Boehm, besides the German bore/French fingering, was the double vented B/F# (or "Acton-mechanism") and the double vented G/D (or "Split C key"). While the Yamaha RB have all these, the current Wurlitzer 185 doesn't any longer have the "split C-key" (while their pictures on their Webb-site of their 187 and 188 models still have it, but maybe these photos are old?).
So evidently the "Reform Boehm" is a somewhat flexible term, but limiting it to only such models as the Wurlitzer 185 would just simply not be correct.
It should perhaps also be mentioned that while some makers of German bore/French fingered clarinets have exactly the same bore on those as on their German system clarinets (as Frank Hammerschmidt and Martin Foag), the others mentioned above have some differences - so while the bore of a RB clarinet could rightly be called "German", it's usually not identical with the bore of the German system clarinets from the same maker.
Post Edited (2024-02-22 17:33)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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