Author: jhoyla
Date: 2016-07-21 12:41
A couple of days ago, on vacation in London, I went in to Howarth's showroom in Chiltern st.
The following descriptions are purely subjective and I am aware that no two players (or reeds) play the same. In internet jargon, YMMV.
They have two reeds there for anyone who wishes to try them - one untouched, one scraped a bit by one of their staff (using a glass-file, apparently). I tried them both. They have none for sale over-the-counter, but they will happily put you on the waiting list and ship one to you.
Suck the staple to moisten the O-rings before you insert, and you won't have any problems.
I found that the scraped one was woefully unstable at the top of the 2nd octave range - A-C. It felt like it needed clipping, though I have no idea what would happen if you tried this. I didn't have a magnifier and my close-up vision is not what it used to be so I cannot tell if micro-cracking was present, though the corners appeared a little dog-eared. This reed has been through the wars.
The other reed is more interesting. It spoke easily, especially at the bottom of the range, and it had a pleasing, rich tone (if a little husky for my taste). Nevertheless, I felt I was working very hard to play it for any length of time.
To compare, I pulled one of my own reeds out of my back-pack and played through the same set. My long-suffering wife (who has been known to refer to my oboe as "his skinny, black mistress") immediately said "Ooh, that one sounds nice!".
For me, at least, I feel that the Legere reeds aren't quite there. Very, very close, but not quite. Of course it could be that the only reeds Howarth still have in the shop are the two that customers didn't take, but this still points to an unacceptable level of variation between different Legere reeds.
On a more positive note (heh), the oboe I tried the reeds on was a brand-new Howarth, model LXV (celebrating 65 years, just as the XL was the 40-year model). An absolute joy to play, rock-solid stability, gorgeous tone and fantastic intonation throughout the range (including low C#, E, and the top notes). Wow.
J.
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