 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Hans
Date: 2000-06-29 07:01
I'm wondering if there are people from the list who are (still) playing Fritz Wurlitzer clarinets from Erlbach, Germany (German system and/or reform boehm). Fritz Wurlitzer is the father of Herbert Wurlitzer and was active till 1976, died in 1984.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2000-06-30 07:06
Karl Leister. His Wuritzer is a property of Berlin philharmoniker, and now is used by his successor. It is too expensive for me to buy one.
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Author: Karlheinz
Date: 2000-06-30 09:25
Karl Leister plays Herbert Wurlitzer like most professionals in Germany.
Fritz Wurlitzer and Herbert Wurlitzer are different brands of different families. Fritz and Herbert both lived at about the same time and were not direct relatives. They had their manufacture in the same small town "Wernitzgruen" close to the Czech border. After WW II and partition of Germany, Herbert Wurlitzer moved to "Neustadt an der Aich" in Western Germany. Today this company is run by Herberts grandson Ulrich Wurlitzer.
I had the opportunity to talk to Gerd Wurlitzer, the grandson of Fritz Wurlitzer who explained me the details at the Music-Fair in Frankfurt this year.
To answer the question, I don't know of any well known clarinetist who plays Fritz Wurlitzer. This brand has shurely to fight the poor image of all former east german
manufacturers.
Karlheinz
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Author: larry
Date: 2000-06-30 14:26
Karlheinz wrote:
"This brand has surely to fight the poor image of all former east german manufacturers."
Is this image justified for DDR clarinet makers? Were/Are there any others that we might want to look for? Did East German orchestral clarinetists (in Leipzig, for example)play on western or eastern instruments? East Germany did produce some quality items (eg: Karl Zeiss Jena opticals). Are there any articles or books that shed light on this topic?
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Author: Hans
Date: 2000-06-30 14:54
I was just curious if there are clarinet players in the USA who are still playing on these beautifull instruments. Of course they are a very few of this kind of instruments
Fritz (died 1984) was surely the father of Herbert Wurlitzer (died 1989). See also the three articles from "Das Rohrblatt" (1995) about the Wurlitzer family.
I am very interested in the Wurlitzer family (aspecially in collecting information and older clarinets - all hand-made - from Fritz). I am playing now on Fritz Wurlitzer clarinets from e-flat till bass and bassethorn. For those who are interested: Luigi Magistrelli plays on a lot of CD's (Bayer records and so on) on old reform boehm Fritz Wurlitzer instruments with impressive results.
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Author: Graham Elliott
Date: 2000-06-30 15:01
Larry wrote
"Is this image justified for DDR clarinet makers? Were/Are there any others that we might want to look for?"
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Oebel comes to mind. I thought they were supposed to be very good instruments. I played one in the 1970s for a short blast and it seemed quite good (a boehm version), but I have not heard of them for a long while. Does anyone have one?
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Author: Karlheinz
Date: 2000-06-30 15:57
Having said, that they have to fight poor image, I did not mean, that this is justified. I have heared of quality flaws of some former East German clarinets, e.g. broken keys. Or it is said that sometimes, silver was not available and the customer had to provide the material if he wanted silver plated keys. But these are stories of the past which led to a certain image. After the german reunification, the shortage of high quality material has gone and you may get the same quality from there. It needs a long time to polish up a once damaged image.
Today I would not hesitate to buy a clarinet from Fritz Wurlitzer or for instance from Rolf Meinel, another maker of hand-crafted clarinets in that area. Rolf Meinel imressed me with the quality of his instruments and with the personal business attitude. The ony thing that kept me from buying was the delivery time of several month.
DDR orchestral clarinetists certainly used high quality instruments made in DDR but these were probably not available to anybody. Rember that there was a different economic system with the absence of nearly any free market. The production and consumption of goods was planned by government.
Karlheinz
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Author: larry
Date: 2000-06-30 16:17
Karlheinz - thanks, that was interesting.
Graham - did you mean "Uebel" (which I've heard of) instead of "Oebel?" Or am I mistaken...
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Author: Graham Elliott
Date: 2000-06-30 17:01
Yes, I meant Uebel. Sorry.
larry wrote:
-------------------------------
Karlheinz - thanks, that was interesting.
Graham - did you mean "Uebel" (which I've heard of) instead of "Oebel?" Or am I mistaken...
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-06-30 17:05
I wish I could!! For history buffs, I am the proud owner of an ?1850's? English Horn made by H Hammer, Sondershausen, [German-Poland-Czech?] border area [dont know who won the last war!!]. Not many keys, barely playable, will describe a bit if of interest. As with the Wurlitzers [I guess] there was quite a bit of inst mfgr in that area!, in that time period. Don
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Author: Karlheinz
Date: 2000-06-30 22:32
Which source should I trust now? The Guy who ran the Fritz Wurlitzer booth at the fare and introduced himself as Gerd Wurlitzer, the grandson of Fritz Wurlitzer - or an article of a magazine that I only have heared of? Btw. the dates of teath do not indicate a father-son relationship. I find this interesting and will try to get the information confirmed occasionaly.
to Don:
H. Hammer company still exists. They were also at the fair. Most interesting at their booth was a whole bunch of unusual clarinets that I have never seen before.
Karlheinz
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-07-01 01:25
Many thanks, Karlheinz, I am AMAZED, I had given up finding out anything about my golden-oldie from that fought-over part of Europe!! My German ancestry [1800's]is from Stuttgart and the Palatinate region, have visited near Cologne and near Bodensee and toured a bit. Does Hammer have a web-site? I'd like to promote a brochure from them. Again TKS, Don
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Author: earl thomas
Date: 2000-07-01 22:06
I think that Michele Zukofsky of the LA Philharmonic plays or as played the Wurlitzer Clarinet; however, which of those I do not know. I'm sure they're great instruments and can tell that they have a huge, dark sound.
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Author: Karlheinz
Date: 2000-07-01 23:55
Sorry! I made a mistake.
I have mixed it up completely! May be that there are too many Wurlitzers in this world, which make or have made clarinets.
Gerd Wurlitzer, whom I met and who is the other Wurlitzer clarinet maker, is the grandson of Clemens Wurlitzer (not Fritz). Hans was right and so was the magazin: Fritz is the the father of Herbert and they belong to the same company.
Sorry for the confusion, I was so shure about it.
Karlheinz
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Author: Hans
Date: 2000-07-02 18:06
Fritz Wurlitzer was still active till 1976 (88 years old!) in Erlbach. He has made 2725 clarinets in his life from E-flat till bass (and one contrabass clarinet) in different systems and always of a very high standard of quality.
Herbert, his son, worked together with his father in Erlbach till 1959. After that year Herbert became independent and active in West Germany.
Herbert died in 1989. His atelier (Neustad a/d Aisch) is now in the hands of his son Berod.
The clarinets he make nowadays are still made under the NAME of Herbert. (very expensive and not more the same quality as in the past from Fritz and Herbert.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2000-07-03 01:00
Is Ulrich Würlizer the same as Hans Ulrich Würlizer, who used to play bass clarinet with the Berliner Philharmoniker?
Alphie
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Author: Karlheinz
Date: 2000-07-03 07:51
Hans wrote:
-------------------------------
Herbert died in 1989. His atelier (Neustad a/d Aisch) is now in the hands of his son Berod.
The clarinets he make nowadays are still made under the NAME of Herbert. (very expensive and not more the same quality as in the past from Fritz and Herbert.
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I fully agree Hans,
I was told, that two of his master craftsmen have left the company and founded their own business because they were unsatisfied with the quality (or the salary?).
Karlheinz
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Author: Hans
Date: 2000-07-03 12:33
Ulrich Wurlitzer is a son of Herbert Wurlitzer, he was indeed for 16 years a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker and since 1981 teacher on clarinet at the Musik Hochschule of Würzburg, Germany.
Besides he carried out the quality control (tuning and end control) of the BRAND Herbert Wurlitzer clarinets.
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Author: Johns
Date: 2012-04-10 13:22
Ik ben vandaag in het bezit gekomen van een Klarinet: Fritz Wurlitzer Bb Duits systeem. Het instrument heeft een flinke service- (revisie)beurt nodig. Op het instrument staat onder het logo een B en het nummer is 465. Wie zou mij meer kunnen vertellen over het type cq ouderdom en wie is de expert op het gebied van revisie
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2012-04-10 15:36
Goedemiddag, Johns.
Ich habe dieses Instrument neulich "in der Bucht" gesehen. Das ist kein normales "deutsches" System. Das Oberstück sieht aus wie Schmidt- Kolbe. Leider sind Birne und Mundstück nicht original.
Zu Schmidt-Kolbe einiges im deutschen Forum: http://www.klarinette24.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3223&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=schmidt+kolbe&start=45
Experten für die Historie: http://www.museum-markneukirchen.de/forum/viewforum.php?f=13
oder Hansdenijs, hier im Forum
Revisie (zufällige Auswahl):
http://www.holzblaeser.com/site.html (Herr Reichle)
http://www.meinert-holzblasinstrumente.de
und natürlich:
http://www.schwenk-und-seggelke.de
Gruß Michael
Post Edited (2012-04-10 20:44)
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Author: Jeroen
Date: 2012-04-15 19:58
@Johns, Bert Wijnand (www.bertwijnand.nl) in Den Haag does a lot of work on Wurlitzers, also the older Fritzels. He can certainly help you.
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Author: Hansdenijs
Date: 2012-05-08 18:14
Attachment: FW Reform Böhm 0002.JPG (570k)
Attachment: Neidhardt Es 0001.JPG (650k)
I would only add a short notice about the standard of quality of the Fritz, Herbert and later Wurlitzer clarinets.
First of all i'm a great admirer of the soloist clarinets from Fritz and Herbert. I'm in a lucky position to play a lot of this kind of older instruments in all pitches and periods. Fritz and Herbert both have tried to improve their instruments in e.g. bore and keywork details. Also techniques has been changed over many years, mostly leading to improvement or cost reduction. (e.g. handforged keywork is very scarce nowadays)
In short very brand has his good, better and less good days, besides a (small) variation in quality on individual instruments.
In the time I wrote my comment (12 years ago) the Herbert Wurlitzer reform Boehm clarinets was in massive decline in the Netherlands within the professionals and high schools due to lack of constant quality, tuning problems and most of all: a not very optimal service and attitude to the client. I know this has been completely changed and improved nowadays. Most of the professionals in Holland has changed their Wurlitzer instruments to Leitner and Kraus (former Meisters of the Herbert Wurlitzer Werkstatt) - this was no rumour but the facts!. So it is not my personal meaning but an observation of the situation in the Netherlands, which is very representative, because the (Wurlitzer) reform-boehm instruments are traditionally played by most of them.
I could be the case that the recent HW instruments are very good now (I have no personal experience with recent instruments). For this reason it makes not so much sinn to defend or attack the "constant" quality of all instruments of a builder during his lifetime. It depends on the period and is also a matter of luck and having relations to find or get the "golden" ones.
At the end i have attached to photos of a nice FW reform-Boehm set from 1964, in my opinion the best period for this kind of instruments in the FW period (very nice tuning around c"') and an example for a still (!) better reform boehm system in e-flat pitch made in the Neidhardt Werkstatt in the same period in the same area, 10 kilometres from Erlbach.
Greeting from Holland,
Hans
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Author: Bill
Date: 2012-05-09 00:03
Once got an email from Nick Schakelton [sp?] asking me if I could take delivery of a Wurlitzer clarinet that, for some reason, he had to have shipped to U.S.A. May have been my Elvis moment as far as me and the clarinet glitterati go.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: donald
Date: 2012-05-09 07:55
I sold a pair of Herberts (that looked pretty much the same as the FW pair above) for a very reasonable price about 3 years ago... regret it to this day. They didn't play any better in tune than my Buffets, but had AWESOME tone.
;-<
dn
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Author: kenb
Date: 2012-05-10 01:53
And I regret to this day that I didn't buy them!
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Author: Micke Isotalo ★2017
Date: 2012-07-25 15:53
This isn't very important, but just a small correction besides the original thread: As Bernd Wurlitzer (who nowadays runs the Herbert Wurlitzer company together with Ulrich Wurlitzer, as correctly said above) told me, the late Herbert Wurlitzer had two daugthers but no sons. Bernd is married to one of them and Ulrich to the other. They both then choosed to take on the surnames of their wives.
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Author: Hansdenijs
Date: 2012-07-26 06:22
Hello Micke,
I have doubted to react on your message, because your topic is not so important for me too. But I do because the value of this tread was and is to give correct information about the Wurlitzer family and their fine clarinets made during many decades for many generations professionals.
I'm sorry but Ulrich Wurlitzer is the son of Herbert and Ruth, so the information as given earier in the tread is correct.
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Author: Hansdenijs
Date: 2012-07-26 06:28
Hello Micke,
I have doubted to react on your message, because your topic is not so important for me too. But I do because the value of this tread was and is to give correct information about the Wurlitzer family from Erlbach/Neustadt and their fine clarinets made during many decades for many generations professionals.
I'm sorry but Ulrich Wurlitzer is the son of Herbert, so the information as given earier in the tread is correct. See e.g. the three overview articles from 1995 (Rohrblatt) about the different branches of Wurlitzer (in German)
best regards,
Hans
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Author: Reddeer
Date: 2016-02-10 09:57
I know your question is ancient but I know two of the finest playing Wurlitzer clarinets.
Michele Zukovsky, Los Angeles Phil. has had a pair since the late '70s (She just retired for L.A. Phil) I heard said it was German system. I did hear her play it in recital about 40ys ago. She waited five yrs to get it. Great clarinet.
Possibly her father (Kalman Bloch) played them as well.
Steve Silverstein, inventor of the famous Silverstein Ligatures plays on a set of Wurlitzer Boehm system clarinets. He will perform on the B-flat at the 2016 Clarinetfest in Lawrence, KS. He plays with myself here. (I am on a Selmer Centered Tone owned by the composer Walt Skolnik). After performing in Clarinetfest 2015 in Madrid, I donated the clarinet to the Spanish Clarinet Society in the name of Dr. Skolnik.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbc1E4R8kKE
Best to all who love these honeys.
Hartshorn Classical Recordings
845-444-4455
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-02-10 14:09
Reddeer -
Kalman Bloch always played Buffet R13s. So did Michele until she went to study with Leister, who told her that the tone and response he sought were available only on the Oehler clarinet. She then switched, completely relearning the fingering and response.
I have tried a Wurlitzer Boehm clarinet, which was wonderfully built and very quick and precise in its response. However, it did not play well with any French-style mouthpiece.
Ken Shaw
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Author: donald
Date: 2016-02-10 14:43
Every so often the old thing comes up on this board "do German mouthpieces play in tune on Boehm clarinets". I have mouthpieces by H Wurlitzer that play perfectly well on Boehm, AND ones by the same maker that certainly don't. I have a Viotto German system mouthpiece that plays very well on Boehm. I have TWO Fritz Wurlitzer German system mouthpieces that are a complete acoustic mismatch- the intonation is completely unmanageable but the sound quality is amazing.
The strangest thing about those F Wurlitzer mouthpieces is that i have no recollection whatsoever of HOW i came to own them????? I have no idea where they came from.... odd because that's the sort of detail i would always remember where such things are concerned (i forget names in a flash, but can remember facing measurements....)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2016-02-10 20:11
Pretty much in agreement with Donald on this one.
I've got many French style mouthpieces that play in tune on Fritz Wurlitzer clarinets. It depends on the player and what you're going for soundwise, more than anything. There are purists who say that Fritz Wurlitzer had a playing concept in mind for the whole system to work together, and that deviation from that doesn't yield what he, the instrument maker, intended. This is probably true enough, but I think some people tend to confuse an *ideal* with what is actually possible.
Also, I tend to think that nearly any player switching from a Buffet R13 style bore to a Wurlitzer is going to have to adjust and change a lot of breathing habits before *anything* actually works for them---same thing switching to any large bore, though. Too often people will say "this isn't in tune" when they haven't actually learned how to play the equipment.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2016-02-10 20:15)
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Author: donald
Date: 2016-02-10 23:45
that wasn't exactly my point, which was rather that there is no ONE German bore, and so the description "German mouthpiece" can not be any guarantee of uniformity. Those Fritz W mouthpieces are totally unplayable on Boehm, and it's nothing to do with how I'm voicing.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-02-12 04:38
Donald,
I'm curious to know which 2 of your Wurlitzer mouthpieces play well on a French Boehm clarinet. I've always heard that even the Wurlitzer 3WZ model, designed to play with Vandoren V12 reeds still requires a special adapter barrel to tune well on a French Boehm. Do you think it a matter of ordering a particular model number (say Wurlitzer M3 or M4 or WZ1) or do you think you just might have happened upon a short custom run of mouthpieces Wurlitzer did that is very atypical and probably not now available?
Post Edited (2016-02-12 09:27)
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