Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2006-11-22 19:41
Frank,
I mostly agree with you, except on the recordings. Even Arthur Benade himself pointed out that recordings don’t accurately capture the harmonics (or partials) that make up a particular clarinet’s sound, and when a recording engineer starts tweaking, things only get worse. To judge clarinet tone from vintage recordings, especially early acoustical recordings, is pretty much an exercise in futility. Sure, you can tell if the instrument is in tune with itself, and that the player may have been a fantastic technician, but you can’t tell what the sound was like in a live concert hall.
That said, since the introduction of the polycylindrical bore and Moennig barrel, the clarinet has become what engineers call a saturated design. The amount of work required to develop an improvement is very disproportionate to the results. In fact, it could be argued that we are going backwards, with the modern unavailability of forked Bbs, articulated G#s and long Eb keys.
That doesn’t mean that the new Leblancs aren’t better, maybe much better. Morrie has put a LOT of work into them, and Leblanc thinks they are worth the investment in new key forging dies, at least.
I’ll hold judgment until I can hear (or better yet play) the new Symphonie beside my old ones. In the meantime, I’ll gladly read Brenda’s reports.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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