Uses of the Clarinet Today
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Get your own Free Home Page| Let's start from the beginning. The reason Johann Christoph Denner developed the clarinet was to improve the old French chalmeaux. In the early eighteenth century, he began the development of the two-key clarinet, after learning his father's profession of horn-tuning as a boy. As Denner grew, he began to develop a reputation for himself as one of the best makers of woodwind instruments in Nuremberg, Germany. It was after his reputation was set that he began improving the chalmeaux in the early 1700's. This eventually led to the birth of the clarinet. Denner's early clarinets took the shape of a treble recorder with finger keys and what was then called a "speaker key" which extends the pitch range up further.
By the time Denner died in 1707, he and his sons had developed 25 types of two-keyed clarinets. These small instruments consisted of a broad mouthpiece, a body with six holes in front and one behind, a small foot joint with two holes side by side, and two metal keys. One key was above the first finger on the left hand, and the other above the thumb of the left hand. Although Denner had died, his sons carried on his work as principle woodwind constructors. Over time, the clarinet was shaped into man's liking with many improvements. One improvement was made in 1720, when the thumb key was moved up higher to more easily produce a B flat. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the bell was lengthened to create space for another key covered hole. It was also around this time when J. Walther wrote in an article that the early two-keyed clarinets sounded "rather like a trumpet in the distance." From that, the clarinet received it's name from the Italian word "clarino", which was a type of trumpet. Also around the third quarter of the century, the clarinet was improved yet again by being lengthened to five or six parts. Those parts were the narrowed mouthpiece, pear-shaped barrel, a left joint with four of five holes and two keys, a right joint with three holes and pinky key, and the bell. By the time the clarinet jumped into the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a thirteen-keyed clarinet had established itself, and had evolved to the point where trills could be executed with ease. It was the middle of the century when the modern clarinet had finally begun to take shape. In 1840, the Boehm system of fingering was applied to the clarinet, rasing the number of keys to 23 (17 keys and 6 ring keys). Then in 1843, Hyacinth Klose, a professor at the Paris Conservatory of Music, re-organized the fingering system, adapting it to fit the clarinet's needs and at the same time applied the Boehm system to his improvements. Finally, after two centuries, the modern clarinet was complete. |
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