Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:23:29 -0500
Subject: Re: [CB] Contrabass clarinets: history and makers
From: Timothy Tikker
On Wednesday, February 23, 2005, at 06:44 PM, List Server wrote:
> Any other makers? What about German makers?
In the book The
Clarinet by Oskar Kroll, revised by Diethard Riehm (Taplinger
Publishing, New York, 1968), a contrabass clarinet is pictured (facing
page 65) made by G. H. Hüller of Schöneck, Vogtland,
Germany. It was introduced in 1939 for use in German air force
bands.
The text describes it as playing an octave below the bass clarinet, so
it must be a Bb.
It has an interesting condensed history of the contrabass (pp.
116-119). Prototypes included the unsuccessful contrebasse guerri=E8re
of Dumas (1808), abd the bathyphon, invented by Wilhelm Wieprecht
(1839) and first made by E. Skorra of Berlin, later by C. Kruspe of
Erfurt. Adolphe Sax tried to develop a contrabass clarinet in the 1840s
and failed. Evette & Schaefer of Paris developed theirs in
1889 at the request of the composer Isidore de Lara.
Fontaine-Besson of Paris also developed one, praised by
Saint-Saëns and called for by d'Indy in his opera Fervaal (1897).
Wilhelm Heckel of Germany developed an all-metal one in
1897. Felix Weingartner used it in his opera Orestes in 1902.
A G contrabass was produced by Ernst Schmidt in the 1930s.
The Eb contrabass is attributed to Selmer.
The Bb octo-bass, invented by Houvenaghel and built by Leblanc,
was completed in the spring of 1939. The same team developed the
Bb contrabass in 1930-31 (interesting to me, as my own French Selmer Bb
soprano full-Boehm metal clarinet was made in 1930).
- Tim Tikker
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Peter Boris Koval"
Subject: Re: [CB] Contrabass clarinets: history and makers
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 00:32:26 -0300
Oskar Kroll was either biased or ignorant about the efforts of
Adophe Sax when he wrote that Sax tried to develop a contrabass
clarinet in the 1840s and failed. Sax took out a couple of patents that
included contrabass clarinets in Eb and Bb and instruments subsequently
were included in price lists with illustrations.
Peter Koval
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Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 20:26:14 -0800
From: David F.
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest]
I believe that contra clarinets first
evolved during the Cretaceous era. They were domesticated in the
Mediterranean region more than two thousand years ago. The first
ones were kept in villages to scare off wild animals. Hannibal's
troops carried them on elephants in order to cross the Alps. Many
distinct and useful breeds were developed in the past two thousand
years. For example, before the development of
microelectronics, most foghorns actually were selectively bred contra
clarinets. If you go to Colonial Williamsburg, you will see
that all of the downspouts are domesticated contra clarinets.
Sadly, contra clarinets no longer exist in the wild. Today,
virtually all contra clarinets are farmed for use as musical
instruments. Apparently there also is a creationist myth about
contra clarinets, but I don't have any information about that.
Jim Lande
NOoooooooo!
I demand equal time.
In the beginning.... God created Heaven & Earth. His
tool of choice was the Contrabass Clarinet. He created the laws of the
universe upon the overtone sequence And all was good. Man was given the
contrabass to play & learn with proficiency & all was good. But
man was lonely. So god created woman with tones in frequency equal to
half that of the contra and said unto man he was not to play upon these
instruments. But woman tempted man to Play upon the smaller instruments
& play upon them he did. When god saw this, Mankind was banished
from the perfect musical garden. And so we must listen to & endure
these smaller instruments to this day.
David F.
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 08:05:28 -0500
Subject: [CB] contrabass clarinet ps
From: Timothy Tikker
PS: That same book also has a photo of the Heckel
contrabass clarinet facing p. 64.
- Tim Tikker
---------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:03:25 -0600
From: "Gregg Bailey"
Subject: [CB] to "David F."
> In the beginning.... God created Heaven & Earth.
His tool of choice was
> the Contrabass Clarinet. He created the laws of the
universe upon the
> overtone sequence And all was good. Man was given the
contrabass to play
> & learn with proficiency & all was good. But man
was lonely. So god
> created woman with tones in frequency equal to half that of
the contra
> and said unto man he was not to play upon these
instruments. But woman
> tempted man to Play upon the smaller instruments & play
upon them he
> did. When god saw this, Mankind was banished from the
perfect musical
> garden. And so we must listen to & endure these smaller
instruments to
> this day.
>
> David F.
I think that's just terrific!
-Gregg
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Lelia Loban"
Subject: [CB] The Long History of Contra Clarinets.
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:55:19 -0500
Jim Lande wrote,
>I believe that contra clarinets
first evolved during the Cretaceous era. They were domesticated
in the
>Mediterranean region more than
two thousand years ago. The first ones were kept in villages to
scare off
>wild animals. Hannibal's
troops carried them on elephants in order to cross the Alps. Many
distinct
>and useful breeds were developed
in the past two thousand years. For example, before the
development
>of microelectronics, most
foghorns actually were selectively bred contra clarinets. If you
go to Colonial
>Williamsburg, you will see
that all of the downspouts are domesticated contra clarinets.
Sadly, contra
>clarinets no longer exist in the
wild. Today, virtually all contra clarinets are farmed for use as
musical
>instruments. Apparently
there also is a creationist myth about contra clarinets, but I don't
have any
>information about that.
Interesting information, Jim. I showed your reply to an
old colleague of mine, Professor Thrasher Tosspot, of Miskatonic
University in Arkham, Massachusetts. He told me he believes that
the dwarf or soprano clarinets belong to a younger species, unrelated
to the Contra Clarinet. He thinks the superficial resemblance
results from environmental factors that made mimicry of the larger,
more ferocious species advantageous for the dwarf clarinets'
survival. (In ancient times, even the most audacious predators no
doubt hesitated to attack a fully mature Contra Clarinet in the wild,
although today's inbred, domesticated Contras sometimes fall prey to
small pests, such as the common or garden Little Two-Legged, No-Neck
Monster.) Proponents of the Cretaceous theory claim that the Contra
Clarinets evolved from a late Jurassic giant tube-worm, Honkosaurus
Vermiformus, that was able to crawl in and out of the saltwater marshes
onto the land by means of its multiple stubby appendages. The theory is
that underwater, these appendages folded over blow-holes that the
creatures used to suck in and then forcibly expell water, for
propulsion, and that the holes and appendages later evolved into what
we know today as keys.
Honkosaurus probably traced its ancestry back to the worm-like
creatures that left the Planolites (burrows) found in Precambrian
sandstone deposits. However, Prof. Tosspot insists that well- preserved
Honkosaurus specimens from the Chesapeake Bay deposits, near the
Calvert Cliffs nuclear power station, show clear signs of muscle
attachment inside the so-called holes, indicating that the "holes" were
joints, that the protrubrances were simply feet on very short legs, and
that the exoskeleton protected a fleshy body with internal organs
similar to those of other commonplace, burrowing tube-worm species and
their descendants. Nobody has proved conclusively that
Honkosaurus had the hollow-bodied structure so characteristic of the
Contra Clarinet. Moreover, nobody has found any "missing link"
species between Honkosaurus and the earliest known indisutable Contra
Clarinets. Some scientists now believe that no direct ancestor of the
Contra Clarinet has ever been found.
Of course, the fact that no such ancestor has been found is not
proof that no such ancestor exists. However, Prof. Tosspot
believes that Honkosaurus is a misnomer, that this species was an
evolutionary dead end, and that the Contra Clarinet did not evolve on
Earth at all. He points to the fact that the earliest
indisputable Contra Clarinet comes from a dig in the wall of a late
Quaternary crater, near Area 51. This specimen not only shows
unmistakable signs of death by fire, but contains traces of iridium inside the
mineral replacement of the exoskeleton. There is evidence of a strong
source of radioactivity below the present-day floor of the crater,
along with evidence that the floor of the crater is a geological
jumble, dug up to a considerable depth and then filled in again,
numerous times, the last time early in the Cenozoic or modern era,
approximately 11,000 years ago.
Professor Tosspot concludes that Contras came from outer
space. Clearly they weren't the highly advanced astronauts who
piloted the ship that Tosspot believes still lies concealed below the
crater the ship made when it crash-landed (because a species advanced
enough for space travel would have resisted being bred and domesticated
by primitive humans). That leaves open the question of who
brought the Contras here, and why....
Lelia Loban
Are you watching Big Brother?
***End of Contrabass Digest***