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Re: German mouthpiece facings

Author: Micke Isotalo ★2017
Date: 2023-04-05 13:19

Hi Chris,

Playing on Reform Boehm clarinets, I've been involved in German and Austrian mouthpieces for quite long now. My current choice which I'm extremely pleased with is a Viennese Maxton Alban with an advertised tip opening of 0.864mm and a facing length of 28.5mm. It's meant for synthetic reeds, but I use it almost exclusively with cane (primarily with Pilgerstorfer Vienna 3.5, but to some extent also with Leutner Professional Wien 5 to 5+ - the Steuer Wien though I've not tried yet).

My previous mouthpieces has included such as the Playnick Brahms, their Viennese A', a German Solist M, a Viotto N1+2 plus a bunch of Wurlitzer pieces.

For me the Maxton Alban is by far superior concerning both tone (I'm aiming for such a full but yet solid and dense sound as possible), intonation, tonguing speed and air consumption - especially compared to my previous Playnicks.

I have two pieces of the Maxton Alban, one with German bore/tenon and the other one with Boehm bore/tenon (the latter as a special order, with 50 € added to the regular prices). Maxton offers two materials, "Classic" and "Flexilis", but the Classic is a bit brighter so it isn't for me.

I'm not at all for the closer, more traditional Viennese tip openings (in the range of about 0.7-0.8mm) which for me are way too restricted in loud dynamics. On the other hand, some of the more open Viennese facings (above 0.85) can be lacking the more typical, Viennese kind of sound - but not so with the Maxton Alban.

As you surely know, the very long facings of Viennese mouthpieces makes them a lot less resistant than what just the tip openings alone would indicate. For me, the Alban has a perfect balance in this regard, concerning resistance and response.

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