B-Bruxelles, 0939
Museum/Collection
City:
Bruxelles
Repository:
Muziekinstrumentenmuseum
Inventory Number:
B-Bruxelles, 0939
Provenance:
Collection Adolphe Sax
Repository
Date
ca. 1750
Measures
| Type | Unit | Value |
|---|---|---|
| height | cm | 94 |
| width | cm | 45 |
| depth | cm | 14,8 |
System
Simple
Keymount type:
Saddle-mounted
Keyhead type:
Round and flat
Key type:
Padded plate
Keys:
3
Fingering
| Notes | Finger | Key |
|---|---|---|
| S | LT | speaker key |
| A | L1 | key |
| E/B | L4 | key |
Materials
| Items | Material |
|---|---|
| mouthpiece | exotic brown wood |
| crook, ferrules, keys, bell | brass |
| body | rosewood (Dalbergia sp.) covered by leather |
Sections
mouthpiece
brass crook
cylindrical body with an attached plank and seven finger holes bored at oblique angles
brass tube bent at an acute angle with a large decorative arrow at the base
upturned brass bell
Description(s)
«The earliest attempts to construct a bass clarinet are designated prototypes. They have three to six keys and are limited in musical use by their simple construction.20 The first is a mid-century instrument (B-Bruxelles, M939) made with a maple body [rosewood, ed.] covered with leather. It has five sections: mouthpiece, brass crook, cylindrical body with an attached plank and seven finger holes bored at oblique angles, brass tube bent at an acute angle with a large decorative arrow at the base, and upturned brass bell. There are three saddle-mounted keys for S, A, and E/B; the touch piece of the last key is placed for the little finger of the left hand (L4), and the open standing round flat key head is mounted on a separate saddle. This instrument was clearly meant to play in the overblown register; Mahillon describes it as having a bad quality, lacking in timbre and accurate intonation.21 Young’s observation that the brass neck and bell sections have a newer appearance suggests that these parts were later and incorrectly proportioned replacements.22
Footnotes
20. Two single reed instruments are sometimes included in discussions of bass clarinet history. The first is a five key bass chalumeau by W. Kress (A-Salzburg, 8/1) and the second is an anonymous plank-shaped one key chalumeau (D-Berlin, 2810, destroyed during World War II). Neither of these instruments were designed to overblow as all bass clarinets are designed, thus, they are both bass chalumeaux. See discussions of these instruments in Rice, The baroque clarinet, 32–35; Van der Meer, “The typology and history of the bass clarinet,” 65–68.
21. Victor-Charles Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif, vol. 2, 220. According to Snoeck, Catalogue de la collection d’instruments de musique anciens, 173; Rendall, The clarinet, 139. This instrument was previously in the collection of Adolphe Sax. In 1890, it was exhibited at the Royal Exhibition in London. See Day, A descriptive catalog, 123 and plate V, fig. A.
22. Young, The look of music, 197, which includes a photo of the side of the bass clarinet; Young, “A bass clarinet by the Mayrhofers of Passau,” 40. For a photo of the opposite side of this clarinet showing the third key, see Rice, The baroque clarinet, 36; for a photo showing a front view with the six finger holes, A key, and E/B key, see Van der Meer, Musikinstrumente, 215.»
Rice, From the clarinet d’amour to the contra bass, 252.
«Three other unstamped single-reed instruments have been reported by several authors to be bass chalumeau or early bass clarinets (Berlin, SI, No. 2810; Brussels, MI, No. 939; Museo Storico, Lugano). Each has been made, possibly in Germany from what may be described as plank of wood covered in leather. The bore of the example in Brussels (c. 18 cm.) runs along one side of the plank with the thumb-hole opening directly on it (see Fig. 1.14). Seven finger-holes enter on the upper surface, bored at oblique angles for convenient reach of the fingers like the finger-holes on the wing-joint of the bassoon. There is also a long, curved crook for the mouthpiece and an upturned widely flared bell (cf. NGDMI 'Chalumeau'; Rendall 1971: 140). […] The instrument in Brussels has three brass keys: the register key, a' key, and e/b' key; it was meant to play in the overblown register with the use of its register key.67 The curator of the Brussels Conservatoire collection, V. C. Mahillon (1893-1922: ii. 220), described it as being pitched in a and stated that its quality was bad, lacking in timbre and accuracy of intonation. It was probably made about 1750 (Van der Meer 1979: 138)»
Footnotes
67. Photo and description in Day 1891: 123, Pl. V, reproduced in Rendall 1971: 139-40, Pl. 7a; another photo in Young 1908: 197, No. 243.
Rice, The Baroque Clarinet, 34-35.
«243. BASS CLARINET Anonymous […] This strange first examples similar to four others, the oldest of which seems to have been the one in Berlin, which tragically was lost in War World II [it is a bass chalumeaux, ed.]. All four had/have a wide body cut from a plank, permitting its fingerholes to be drilled obliquely at considerable distance into its bore that runs along one edge. Neither date, maker, nor country of origin is known of any of the four, but if authentic, the Berlin example would appear to have been the oldest bass clarinet of which we know. The other three would appear to be only slightly younger, perhaps 1750, as given above. One authority has asked if these might not be the bass de chalumeau, for which Graupner wrote on several occasions. I myself am uneasy about all of these specimens, the metal portions of which do not seem to be nearly as old as the body pieces may be.
Brass bell, bottom piece, neck, and three keys. Overall H 136.0 cm.
Musée Instrumental, Brussells, 939»
Young, The look of music, 197
«A similar eighteenth-century bass clarinet (maker also unknown) is number 939 of the Instrument Museum of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels4 (Figure 2). Mahillon, an acoustician, and former curator and cataloguer of this collection, describes this bass clarinet in a fashion similar to the Sachs description of the Berlin specimen; however, Mahillon also states that the Brussels specimen is German, 5 has wooden mouthpiece, and three keys. One of these three keys is long and is used to produce E/b. This E/b key is manipulated by the little finger of the left hand, and it is mounted on the flat side of the body. The other two smaller keys are pressed by the thumb and first finger of the left hand are used to produce throat-tones a and b flat. The thumb key is also the speaker key.1 Mahillon states that he played this bass clarinet and found that the twelfths which it produced with its single-speaker key were poor. He claims that the poor quality was due to the defective proportion of the air column, caused by the instrument's incorrectly proportioned bore.2 The greater number of keys seems to indicate that this bass clarinet was built at a later date than the Berlin specimen; however, it could have been constructed between 1730 and 1750, when the three-key clarinets first appeared.3, 4, 5.
Footnotes
4 (page 8). Rendall, The Clarinet, p.147
5 (page 8). Mahillon has offered no evidence that this bass clarinet is German other than his apparently incorrect supposition that it is an early Grenser-made instrument. Cf.,pp. 14 and 16.
1 (page 9) The three keys are flat, utilize flat pads, and are mounted in saddles.
2 (page 9) Victor Charles Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Musée iinstrumental du Conservatoire royal de musique de Bruxelles II (10th ed.; Brussels: Gand, 1896), 219-220.
3 (page 9) Rendall, The Clarinet, p.72. Rendall dates the appearance of the three-key clarinets c. 1730.
4 (page 9) Oskar Kroll, The Clarinet, rev. by Diethard Riehm, trans. by Hilda Morris, trans. ed by Antony Baines (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1968), p. 19. Kroll dates the appearance of the three key clarinets c. 1740.
5 (page 9) In a letter to the author dated December 15, 1970, and in "Some More Denner Guesses," p.119, J. H. van der Meer states that he believes that the E key appeared c. 1750 or later. He is of the opinion that no bass clarinet existed before 1750.»
Kalina, The Structural Development of Bass Clarinet, 9-10.
«If the documented history begins in 1772, the undocumented may well begin rather earlier with a primitive instrument by an unknown maker, constructed of plankwood covered with leather. Two well-preserved specimens survive in the collection at Berlin (2810) [a bass chalumeaux destroyed during World War II, ed.] and Brussels (939). The first, formerly in the Snoeck collection (910), has apparently only one key, while the second, formerly owned by Adolphe Sax, has three, and is described at some length by V.-C. Mahillon (Catalogue, vol. 2, p. 219). Both are in essential identical in design. The body, an inch in thickness, is considerably wider at the bottom than at the top; it resembles in shape a narrow triangle with blunted apex. A long crook of graceful and surprising modern appearance is fitted at the top, an upturned widely-flared bell at the bottom. Both are of brass.»
Rendall, The clarinet, 139-140
«Allemagne. 939. Clarinette Basse, etièrement recouvert de cuir, est formé d'une planchette de bois de 0m655 de longueur, de 0m025 d'épaisseur, de 0m045 de largeur à l'extrémité supérieure et de 0m090 de largeur maxima vers l'extrémité inférieure. La colonne d'air, d'un diamètre de 18 millimètres environ, est forée sur le côté le plus long de la planchette. Un pavillon en cuivre, don't l'ouverture remonte vers le haut de l'instrument, termine la colonne d'air; il s'applique par une emboîture sur un tenon qui about it à l'extrémité inférieure du corps en bois. Un bocal encuivre reçoit un bec de bois et s'insère dans une emboîture ménagée à la partie supérieure de l'instrument. Huit trous latéraux sont percés dans le sens de sa largeur, de façon à déboucher dans la colonne d'air. Le huitième trou latéral pour le pouce de la main gauche débouche directement dans la perce; il est surmonté de la clef n° 3, qui se prend avec le même doigt. Sur la face opposée et étroite du corps sont pratiqués les sept autres trous latéraux; ils traversent, comme nous l'avons dit, la planchette dans toute sa largeur et débouchent dans la perce par un conduit oblique. C'est cette obliquité et la longueur de ces conduites latérales qui font que celles-ci ont pu être assez rapprochées sur la face étroite et extérieure de la clarinette pour être accessibles aux doigts. Le septième trou latéral est surmonté de la clef n° 2, qui se prend avec l'index de la main gauche; une première clef, placée à gauche, sur le côté plat du corps, se ferme au bas de l'instrment lorsqu'on appuie l'annulaire de la main gauche sur l'extrémité de la clef.
L'overture successive des trous latéraux et des clefs procure les intonations suivantes:
[img]
Ces intonations, qui se reproduisent à leur douzième supérieure respective quand on maintien l'ouverture de la clef n° 3, sont équivalentes à celles que fournirait una clarinette basse en la. Elles sont naturellement de mauvaise qualité, sans timbre, sans justesse, à cause des proportions défectueuses de la colonne d'air. Il est bon de faire remarquer qu'il ne s'agit pas ici d'un instrument de fantaisie, car nous en connaissons un second exemplaire.
Le nôtre appartenait jadis à Adolphe Sax; or, nous en avons vu un autre, absolutement semblable, dans la collection de de Coussemaker, d'où il est passé dans la collection Snoeck, à Gand.
L'origine de ces instruments nous est malheureusement inconnue; il ne serait pas impossible qu'ils fussent les premiers essais de la basse de clarinette, imaginée par Grenser, de Dresde.
Long. tot. 1m36.»
Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royel de Musique de Bruxelles, vol. 2 219-221
«261. BASS CLARINET, in Bb. Of German make. This instrument is of German make and is in all probability one of the earliest bass clarinets in existence. It is made of wood, covered by leather, and has a brass crook and bell, which is turned up at an acute angle. The wooden body is flat, and about an inch in thickness, the fingerholes, which slant upwards through the thickness of the wood, are brought near enough for the fingers to cover them. There are three brass keys on saddles, producing in actual sounds Ab, G, and the low D. Outside length 3 feet 1½ inches. Plate V., fig. A.
Lent by the Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Brussels.»
Day, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments, 123
Bibliography
| Author | Title | Edition | Year | Vol, Page(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rice, Albert R. | From the Clarinet d'Amour to the Contra Bass | Oxford University Press | 2009 | 252 |
| Rice, Albert R. | The Baroque Clarinet | Clarendon Press - Oxford | 1992 | 34-36 |
| Young, Phillip T. | The look of music | Vancouver Museums & Planetarium Association | 1980 | 197 |
| Kalina, David Lewis | The Structural Development of Bass Clarinet | Columbia University Ed. D. dissertation | 1972 | 9-10 |
| Rendall, F. Geoffrey | The Clarinet | Williams and Norgate Ltd. | 1954 | 139-140 |
| Mahillon, Victor-Charles | Catalogue descriptif | Librairie Générale De Ad. Hoste, Éditeur | 1909 | vol. 2, 219-221 |
| Snoeck, C. C. | Catalogue de la collection d'instruments de musique anciens ou curieux | J. Vuilsteke, Editeur | 1894 | 173 |
| Captain Day, Charles Russel | A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, London, 1890 | Eyre & Spottiswoode | 1891 | 123 |
