Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-11-20 13:00
>Is there any chance that this was originally a high pitch instrument?
>
Given the age of the clarinet, if it was made for the British or American market, it was almost certainly built as what we call a high-pitch instrument today. A clarinet of this vintage wouldn't have "HP" engraved, because "LP" hadn't happened yet.
I write the caveat "almost" because 1894 was toward the end of the pitch-wars in Europe, when instruments were being built to inconsistent standards. England's standard had stretched to nearly half a tone sharper than the standard in France, for instance, and musicians who frequently travelled back and forth, as many of them did, were not happy about the lack of standardization. If Buffet, a French company, made this clarinet for the French market, then it would probaby be French pitch. That's still higher than concert A=440 but can be brought down to A=442 without wrecking its scale.
For more information: The British tenor Sims Reeves strongly advocated for standardized (lower) pitch in England, and wrote extensively about this problem in one of his autobiographies that's now in the public domain and available free of charge online:
J. Sims Reeves, My Jubilee, or, Fifty Years of Artistic Life. London: London Music Co., Ltd,. and Simpkin, Marshall & Co and Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1889. LOC ML420 .R33. Online at Open Library, http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7209371M/My_jubilee
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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Post Edited (2012-11-20 13:02)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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