 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Metalclarinetgigman
Date: 2002-09-27 10:46
Here is an interesting item on Ebay UK
**Vintage Clarinet or Oboe!**
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=909460923
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Author: David Stringer
Date: 2002-09-27 12:35
If I did the math right, it's 18.8 inches long. I've never looked that closely at a metal clarinet... is it usual to only have two rings? So it's not an oboe, but what is it?
David
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-09-27 14:09
Actually it is a metal clarinet made not to the Albert system but the even older Mueller system, the predecessor to the Albert. Although the Albert system was developed in the 1840s, the Mueller system continued to be produced up through the end of the 19th century and perhaps even into the beginning of the 20th.
It's missing a few keys to be an Albert system clarinet.
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-09-27 14:20
Dee,
Do you think it's an eefer, or maybe a high pitch (HP) "C" clarinet, perhaps? I'm not sure from the length. Thanks for pointing out the Mueller vs. Albert difference -- you're right, of course. Wonder what it would be like to play Daphnis & Chloe on a Mueller-system horn?? Oy vey!
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-09-27 14:54
The instrument has "salt spoon" (hemispherical) pad cups, which dates it well before the end of the 19th century -- too early to have been used for Daphnis. It also has the throat Ab and A keys separated, and the Ab key looks like it's operated by the left middle finger -- an early design.
The instrument looks well made, with nice detailing on the thumb rest and the plates for the left thumb and index fingers. The strut connecting the low Ab key with the pad cup has some marks that look like it got some amateurish repair work, but things look straight.
It's a pity we don't know what pitch it is. Probably in C -- it looks too big to be in Bb -- and probably at high pitch. I wonder if the mouthpiece is original. It looks fairly modern.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2002-09-27 15:10
The seller says 47 centimeters (including mouthpiece). That works out to about 18.5" on my calculator. Even a high-pitched C would be quite a bit longer than that. Assuming the seller's measurements are reasonably accurate, I agree with Dee that it is an eefer -- possibly a high-pitched eefer.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: d dow
Date: 2002-09-27 16:43
Daphis would be pretty tough on that sucker!
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2002-09-27 17:57
Dee,
which keys do you mean are missing to make it an Albert? To my knolege the Müller system don't have rings. This one has the usual two rings for being an Albert or a German "simple system".
We have gone through this before but I still don't know the difference between Albert and Simple System.
Alphie
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-09-27 21:41
Velly interesting! I was about to suggest consulting Al Rice, Debbi Reeves and others of our knowledgable collectors, until I looked into the "museum horns" sections of several of our "good books". Brymer's "museum" between pgs 52-3 Fig 19 a shows a clar looking "just" like the EBAY pic. It will require close comparison, but is "by Henry Distin, London, before 1857, 12 keys, a very early brass". Having rings, "salt spoons", etc as Ken et al point out dates it between Boehm-Sax and Albert [to me]. As to pitch, likely a "high" IMHO, it could be a D. if not an Eb [or C]. Buy it and check it out!!! Much fum, Don
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-09-27 22:05
Albert systems have 3 side trill keys on the upper joint. This one has only two.
Simple system has fewer keys than either Albert or Mueller. Unfortunately, the names (especially simple system) have been misused and applied to each other as we move farther forward in time from the introduction of each of these advances.
Albert system horns have 13 or 14 keys and anywhere from 0 to 4 rings. Mueller system has down around 11 or 12 keys and may or may not have some rings. Simple systems had less than either of these.
You see there were variations of each so it can get a little difficult to figure it out. The giveaway on the Alberts is the three side trill keys on the upper joint.
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Author: ron b
Date: 2002-09-28 04:34
Hi, Dee
To the best of my limited knowledge all of your observations are correct... (as usual the Mueller key configuration, their number, trill keys etc.
I came away with a feeling about this 'old'(?) horn, after gazing at the pix for ten/fifteen minutes or so.
And that is:
if I were to fabricate an instrument, a home made type instrument, with the equipment I have in my garage workshop, this is very likely what it would turn out to look like. In fact I wouldn't need to use all the equipment I have to put something like this together.
Apart from the modern mouthpiece, I base this in part from the pinky keys. The left ones have rollers, the right ones are Boehm(or Mueller) style... a rather grotesque mix of English and German styles elsewhere as well.
This 'antique' instrument could have been relatively easily assembled by anyone with the motivation (whatever it may have been) from existing 'junk box' pieces and some soldering skill and time on their hands. Because it is fairly 'clean' looking, I suspect it is not a prototype; rather one of a series produced for a rather limited consumer market. Whether by necessity, because no other instruments were available, or to turn out something akin to sophisticated novelty ashtrays - I have no idea.
Since there are no makers' marks of any kind, I'm highly skeptical that this is anything more than a novelty piece - perhaps someone's arts and crafts class project.
That is my opinion.
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Author: John Kelly - Australia
Date: 2002-09-28 06:24
I can't remember actually reading a reference to the "simple" system as such, being an actual SYSTEM as we mean it.
I really think simple is, actually, just a popular way of referring to clarinets that are Albert [or non-Boehm maybe?] but with fewer keys.
Did any manufacturer actually produce models with the name 'simple' in the name? I suspect not................correct me if you wish, anyone.
I have a Buffet Albert [with the requisite # of keys] and a couple of 'simples' and the basic fingering is the same, but the 'simples' are without the choice of alternate fingerings that the Albert system provides. My Albert has 3 side trill keys upper joint, as Dee points out, PLUS roller keys [it's not an Oehler] and four rings rather than the 'simples' I own which have 2 side trill keys, two rings and no rollers keys.
Hey, I'm actually toying with idea of having the best of my 'simples' refurbished as they are lightweight compared to the full Oehler and new Yamaha Boehm that a couple of colleagues of mine play! I think I'd prefer to be limited with fingering choices rather than ascerbate clarinet player arm and wrist strain.
As for the job on ebay. Oboe???no way - Albert or simple....?? I dunno..... Looks more professional than just a project piece.........looks very old if genuine and, rather pretty in an old fashioned quaint sort of way.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-09-28 12:14
Age is difficult to determine as Muellers were produced in reasonable quantities for decades after the invention of the Albert system. Even the simple systems were produced for quite some time after the introduction of the Mueller and then the Albert systems.
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Author: jim lande
Date: 2002-09-29 03:15
My first reaction to Ron's comment was that nobody would make a clarinet as a shop project. Then I remembered. I have one. It is a standard boehm, but a real mutt of a metal clarinet. The keys look like they came from several different clarinets and some of the keys had to be modified to fit the holes. One key had a chunk sawed out to make room for it to cross over some other misfit key. Mine does have a name "Joray" and "The Ray Co / Denver".
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Author: Wes
Date: 2002-09-30 01:21
There was a very small company making clarinets in Denver in 1948 and I visited the storefront where they were made. The only different item about these wooden or plastic Boehm clarinets was that the throat A key was moved to the left side a little.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-09-30 16:07
Having found a very-closely-appearing metal clarinet in Brymer,s "Clarinet" Figure 19 A, and knowing of the limited, collector interest in "oldies", I still had hoped that at least some of our "Early Clarinet" readers might look-up and comment from their comparison of the pics. To my viewing, they appear identical in structure and keying detail, [except for an Eb vs a Bb?] and the ancestry of each. Both are England-related, I assume Brymer's pic is from the Bate Museum's comprehensive collection in Oxford, to show the British contributions to the "continental" development. It is interesting to follow the bidding, 2 days to go, at about 165 US dollars now, inexpensive [at the moment] for a mid-1800's museum piece, IMHO. Don
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2002-09-30 17:32
Dee.
as I understand your description of the Albert system I think I'm quite clear over which keys are included. However, I don't think that the Müller system ever had rings. The ring mechanism is a turningpoint in itself. Müller's main contribution was the key for F/C, left side LF Eb lever and a lever for RH thumb for E/H. Earlier the tonehole for D5 (RH little finger) had been misplaced above the tonehole for Ab/Eb. The ringkeys were as far as I know attributed to Klosé/Böhm and introdused in 1840. The idea might be borrowed from England, a Frederich Nolan is said having applied a ring key to the normal H/F# lever as early as 1808.
Alphie
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-09-30 20:26
If ring keys were introduced in 1840, then that is a pre-Albert introduction as the Albert system was not introduced until 1846, which by the way was actually after the introduction of the Böhm system.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-09-30 21:42
Recommended reading, Chap. VIII in Rendall, details and dates, a few "pioneers" and many "improvers". Don
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-09-30 21:45
Ring keys were not introduced with the "Boehm" Clarinet of 1844. The joined "spectacle" rings on R2 and R3 were used in the 1820s and may have been introduced by Müller himself, working with Heckel. This double ring replaces the inconvenient RH right side key used in earlier Müller instruments.
Development of the Clarinet during the 19th century and surrounding years was rather chaotic. Only the Klosé/Buffet (*not* of Buffet-Crampon fame, by the way) "Boehm" instrument -- patented in 1844 -- has remained essentially unchanged in its basic fingering for 158 years.
Although we popularly call it that, there was really no "Albert System" as such. E. Albert of Brussels made Clarinets in several fingering styles, all of them (to my knowledge) expansions of the Müller Clarinet. The Albert-made Clarinet known best is perhaps the one of the late 1860s, which had three upper side keys (operated by R1), two joined rings for R2 and R3, and the "Patent" F#/C# mechanism (generally known as "Patent C#") which provides a convenient alternative fingering for those notes. Some of the later Albert instruments also had two LH rings, but I am not certain when that innovation was introduced. E. Albert's Clarinets, acording to Rendall, were big-bore instruments, with intonation which Rendall says was without equal even as late as his day. It would be interesting to know the dimensions of one of these instruments. An old Boosey which looked just like an Albert instrument is the longest Bb Clarinet I ever measured, at 28¼ inches overall, thus indicating a big bore. Perhaps this bore and intonation are what made them popular, rather than the fingering system. The E. Albert firm was not founded until 1846, two years after the appearance of the Klosé/Buffet "Boehm" Clarinet.
As a side item, those knowledgeable in German-system Clarinets maintain that the Oehler System was not developed from Albert's Clarinets, but rather it was a natural outgrowth of the Müller Clarinets taken to a logical extreme.
I have measured E-flat Clarinets with total lengths (including mouthpiece) ranging between 18½ (no marque) and 22 1/8 (Buffet), a rather remarkable spread. The "Orient" brand instrument, sold out of India by several sellers through eBay, is reported to have an overall length of 23 inches, for what that may be worth. This instrument's design appears to have been copied from an old Boosey.
My Jerome Thibouville-Lamy Eb LP measures 18 25/32" overall. For various reasons, I believe this instrument was built no later than 1880. It lacks a Patent C#, has only two side keys, and has only the RH "spectacle" rings, making it a duplicate of the advertised auction item from a fingering standpoint. Anyway, I suspect that the metal instrument, at 47 cm overall (18½"), is most likely an E-flat pitch instrument, *but it could be HP*. This would mean that in an A=440 environment, it would be almost a half-step sharp.
It certainly is a nice-looking piece.
Regards,
John
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Author: John Kelly - Australia
Date: 2002-09-30 23:53
JohnMc,
I think you are right regarding the name "Albert" as becoming a popular way of referring to [non-Boehm] instruments amongst clarinet players - in much the same way as "simple", I suspect, has also become a popular myth to describe "Alberts" with fewer keys.
The Muller [can't do the 2 dots over the "u"]system is what we should perhaps be calling our modern Alberts and simples as it seems obvious to me that non-Boehm system instruments are largely derived from his innovations.
Dee,
I am referring to Brymer's book where he states that Muller ".......presented his newly designed clarinet to the Conservatoire in Paris for examination............" in 1812 and, Brymer again, "The name Boehm system clarinet is a misnomer; but it has been with us for so long - since 1839 when it was first exhibited in Paris by Klose..........." These two references indicate to me that the Muller [a.k.a. Albert/simple] actually pre-date the Klose [a.k.a. Boehm].
I would be interested in reading a book or reference which states that the Albert system was introduced in 1846 and would also like to access literature/advertising or the like where the "simple" is actually is quoted as being an actual system.
My take on the history may be incorrect perhaps, but it now seems to me that we should rightly refer to our systems as Muller or Klose [credit where credit is due], but of course, that will never happen.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-10-01 05:57
John: *The Clarinet* by Rendall/Bate (Third dition, Benn/Norton,1971) is the source of the following: Iwan Müller's early Clarinet improvements were first seen no later than 1808 (p89). E. Albert of Brussels wasn't even in business until 1846 (p105). Klosé and A. Buffet collaborated on their instrument, which they called "clarinette à anneaux mobiles" ("Clarinet with movable rings"), from 1837 until 1843 (p97). The instrument was patented in 1844. *Not* in agreement with Brymer, Rendall says (p97) it wasn't called "Boehm" until "rather later."
In rereading my previous post, one thing is stunningly unclear. I mentioned the appearance of rings in 1820 (perhaps even before then) and mentioned Müller's possible introduction of them as an improvement to his instrument. What I did not mention is that there is a time disconnect between these two events. This improvement to the Müller design did not occur until 1845, after the Klosé patent was issued. (Rendall comments on p104 that this was during a time when Müller was visiting Heckel).
Yes, before someone asks, I do have references other than Rendall, but it was the best place I could remember to get the information requested regarding Albert. I do suggest, however, that the so-called "Albert System" did not come along until somewhat after 1846, as the "Patent C#" likely originated (not with Albert) no earlier than 1862.
The disagreement between Rendall and Brymer is nothing unusual. Different authors not only treat elements of history with different emphasis, they certainly don't always agree. For example, Rendall's Name Index shows E. Albert at six different locations in the book. As I recall, the index of Oskar Kroll's book *Die Klarinette* lists E. Albert only once. Not only that, Kroll's entry -- regarding a harmony Clarinet built by E. Albert -- is not in agreement with information in the Rendall book. Oh, well....
Some modern authorities refer to anything less than Deutsches Normal or "Boehm" instruments as "simple systems." I do not recall having seen the term in Rendall's book. However, David Pino (*The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing*) refers (p214) to "simple" systems as having "...descended from the Ivan Müller clarinet of 1806-1812." Other references in this book to "simple system" make it quite unclear just what Pino is writing about. Pino also mentions J. B. Albert in conection with the "Albert System" Clarinet, which I believe is misleading. Pino refers to J. B. Albert (p216) as having "more or less remodeled the Müller clarinet sometime during the 1840s or 1850s. No particular advances or specific improvements were made over Müller's clarinet...." However, what all now seem to consider as the "Albert System" has solid improvements over the original Müller Clarinet. Three side keys, Patent C#, the R2/R3 rings, and rollers for easy transitions with the R4 and low-end L4 keys (I forgot to mention them in my earlier post). As I wrote previously, I believe the E. Albert Clarinet of the later 1860s is, for want of a better term, the prototype of what most think of as the "Albert System." As a curious note, Rendall only mentions J. B. Albert once (note, p164) as having been the builder of James Clinton's own personal "Clinton Combination Clarinet." That Clarinet could be played pitched in A or B-flat.
Enough, enough. But I still think the brass eefer is a pretty instrument. I rather wish my budget could cover a frivolous expenditure for something so interesting.
Regards,
John
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-10-01 06:05
Bleacch. Rats. Bad typo in first paragraph above. The Klose/Buffet collaboration was between 1839 and 1843, *not* from 1837. Please also note that Brymer says the instrument was first exhibited in Paris by Klosé in 1839, while Rendall says its development was not completed until four years later.
Regards,
John
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Author: John Kelly - Australia
Date: 2002-10-01 10:40
Thanks to JohnMc - most informative and I will look out for the book. Hopefully it's still available even if it's a 1971 edition - I'm in the academic book publishing business myself so I'll check the agent in Melbourne [Aust that is....not FL] and I can vouch for your comment about experts in any [every] field disagreeing with one another as a matter of peer review.
I shall keep your detailed reply to hand when I track down the Rendall book and any others which surface in the meantime.
Thanks again.
JK
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-10-01 17:06
Keep in mind that, as the various references show, the Klose/Boehm effort was independent of the Mueller/Albert line of development. So yes the Mueller was developed before the Boehm and the Albert was developed after the Boehm. Even though there are some differences in dates between the various authorities, the basic time frame is the same as is the sequence.
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Author: ALARIC
Date: 2002-10-04 06:16
There were many more clarinet makers than are remembered, and many attempts at making clarinets with the results being destroyed so long ago that there is no record of the experiments. Even Conn in the 1800s made models in which less than a dozen were made. A unique item with a rugged and artistic design like this might have survived even if the clarinet was not functional in any key by modern standards.
A huge number of individually handcrafted instruments were made in the 1800s that were also destroyed in the 1800s. Some of them were absolutely gorgeous to look at, but an embarrassment to try to play. What would be extremely valuable as a masterpiece in artistic craftsmanship today wasn't appreciated when more functional popular instruments became available back then. Somewhere in the world there is a very ornate clarinet inlaid with gold and ivory, but I've never seen it, and people didn't make lamps back then, so such things had no use despite their beauty.
It is not so precise (e.g. Albert or Mueller). Of course you can call it a clarinet, and I'd guess made around 1870, but there were thousands of craftsmen back then, and they didn't necessarily abide by an established 'system' other than their perception of what would make a musical instrument, and an expression of their craftsmanship. Albert and Mueller may have been lucky because they were remembered, and others tried to replicate their examples. There are people who can make a rifle in a machine shop from scrath--That doesn't make them Winchesters.
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