Clarinet England Eighteen Century

A Short Account of the Clarinet in England during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Author(s): F. Geoffrey Rendall

Source: Proceedings of the Musical Association, 68th Sess. (1941 - 1942), pp. 55-86
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association
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23 APRIL, 1942.
SIR PERCY BUCK, D.Mus.,

IN THE CHAIR.
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE CLARINET IN

ENGLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND
NINETEENTH CENTURIES.
BY F.
GEOFFREY RENDALL.
(Read by CECIL OLDMAN)
THE present paper is mainly biographical in purpose. It

is an attempt, possibly a pioneer attempt, to present in
some sort of chronological sequence the story of clarinet
playing in these islands. Much of its purpose will be
achieved if it serves to rescue from possible oblivion the
names and doings of some of the earlier players, and more,
if listeners or readers are stimulated to fill up some of the
many gaps in the story.
The development of the mechanism of the instrument
itself demands a separate paper, and will only be dealt with
here in so far as Englishmen contributed to it or availed
themselves of successive improvements in its construction.
A few words about its development, however, are a necessary
preliminary. The clarinet was invented about the turn of
the seventeenth century by Denner of Nuremberg. The
first rude instruments had only two keys; by 1750 the
number had been increased to three or four, by Mozart's
time to five or six, by I8o0 to eight or ten, by I815 to
thirteen, and in 1843 to seventeen, with six ring keys in
addition. This very brief resume will show that for the
first I20 years of its existence, the clarinet was a very
primitive instrument indeed, capable of performance only
in the simpler keys and generally speaking inferior to the
contemporary flute and oboe.
The first known part for clarinet occurs early in the
I720's in a five-part mass by J. A. J. Faber, the MS. of which
was formerly preserved in Antwerp cathedral. It is a real
clarinet part for clarinet in C, supporting the contralto
voice in Qui tollis with accompaniment of two flauti traversi
and cembalo.
In England, Handel presents the first problem. Did he
use the clarinet ? It is often said that he was a pioneer in
orchestration. In the operas he makes occasional use of

56
The Clarinet in England
such uncommon instruments as the bass flute, bass recorder,

flauto piccolo and comet, with an eye to some special effect.
Whether the presence of itinerant virtuosi suggested their
use to him, or whether members of his orchestra were
expected to provide and play them, cannot now be ascertained, but it is at any rate to be presumed that Handel was
keenly alive to novel orchestral effects, and would have
used clarinets without hesitation, if he had known about them.
Here are two pieces of evidence that he did use them.
I. Among the Handel MSS. in the Fitzwilliam Museum
is an Overture in D, in five movements, for two clarinets
in C, and a Corno di Caccia.
2. The song Par che mi nasca in Tamerlano appears in
the H.G. edition in two versions, version A having an
accompaniment of violins and transverse flute, version B of
violins and two cornetti. In the Granville MS., however,
the cornetti are replaced by Clar. I? and 2?. The pensive
of
nature of this Larghetta puts clarini-trumpets-out
court, and there can be little doubt that clarinets were
intended. Here, of course, the crucial question is the date
of the MS., and a date is the last thing that you will get
out of an expert. Balance of opinion, however, favours a
date between I740 and I750. This squares with the date
1740 suggested by Dr. Mann for the Fitzwilliam Overture.
The clarinet parts, moreover, in the latter lie mainly in the
middle register, and, the work being in D, the middle C#
is of frequent occurrence. It is doubtful whether the
special key for producing this note was invented before
I740. Whether he used it or not, Handel had an opportunity of hearing the clarinet during his sojourn in Dublin
in the spring of 1742, since a week or two after the first
performance of Messiah " Mr. Charles, the Hungarian,"
played solos on the clarinet and " Shalamo "' at a public
concert. Mr. Charles was also a horn player and played a
concerto with his " Second " at one of Arne's concerts in
Dublin in the following year. He published twelve duettos
for 'French Horns, and appeared with his second some
years later in Edinburgh as a clarinet player. More
Shalamo: plainly an anglicisation of Chalumeau. It is far from
clear what instrument is intended in this instance. Chalumeaux
often appear in Gluck's scores, and are in his case usually assumed to
be clarinets. Handel writes for two "Chaloumeaux" in the song
"Quando non vedi" in Riccardo Primo. Is this another example of
his use of clarinet ? Mr. Charles may possibly be identified with the
composer of 5 livres d'Airs d chanter published by Baillard of Paris,
1717-I734.

57
information about this pioneer of the clarinet would be

welcome, since he has not been traced in any musical
dictionary.
The scene shifts to London. Between 1740 and I750
the clarinet had been making its presence felt both in and
outside Germany. There were two clarinets at Frankfurt
in 1739; two at the Abbey of Kremsmiinster in I747; and
at Paris in I749 clarinets were used in Rameau's Zoroastre,
and again in I751 in Acante and Cdphise.
In December of the same year, 1751, the clarinet appears
in London, a " clarinette" concerto figuring in "a grand
concert of vocal and instrumental music by gentlemen" at
the New Theatre in the Haymarket. This may not be its
first appearance in London; a diligent search of newspapers might well provide earlier examples of its use, but
it is at present the first I have noticed. The players in
Paris were apparently mainly Germans, so it will occasion
no surprise to hear of a German advertising in the mid
1750's " great concerts with clarinets, French horns and
kettledrums" at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.
This was Carl Barbandt, a Southern German, who came to
London about I750, and was apparently an oboist, as well
as composer and organist. He is a shadowy figure, but it
is often assumed that like other oboists of the period he
played the clarinet as well. Or, if he did not play himself,
he could no doubt avail himself of the services of the
Messieurs Charles.
During its struggle to obtain a footing in the concert room,
the clarinet was constantly associated with the horn.
Handel's " Overture" to which allusion has already been
made is probably the earliest example of a partnership
which was apparently popular both in concert room and
pleasure garden. Both instruments were at this date
clarinet could hardly play a
essentially imperfect-the
diatonic scale m the simplest key in tune-but both were
essentially romantic, and even if their music were limited to
the simplest hunting calls and echo effects the blend of tones
was found to be charming, more especially in the open air.
The researches of Mr. Carse have recently revealed the
names of some of these early clarinettists and cornists.
Thus in I766 at Marylebone Gardens "Choice pieces on
the Clarinets and French Horns" were played by Messrs.
Frickler, Henniz, Seipts and Rathyen. The two instruments
were no less popular at Ranelagh during the I760's and
'70's and are constantly advertised to play "favourite
pieces" in the Chinese Temple.

58
In November, I760, the combination of horns and

clarinets made its appearance at Covent Garden in Arne's
Thomas and Sally, providing the opening symphony and
accompaniment for the chorus of huntsmen. Clarinets
appear again in Arne's Artaxerxes, first produced in I762,
occasionally replacing flutes and oboes, and being selected
to accompany Miss Brent and later Tenducci in the famous
"Water parted from the Sea." The parts for clarinet in C
are written mainly in the clarinet register; the dull and
rather toneless chalumeau notes of the primitive instrument
being avoided as far as possible. The performance must
have been fairly adequate in tone and tune or these famous
singers would hardly have tolerated such an accompaniment. In the same year J. C. Bach used D and Bb clarinets
in his Orione, and from now on clarinets may be assumed
to have been available in London when wanted. Mozart
may have heard them for the first time when he came to
London in 1764.
In 1763 clarinets were introduced into the festival
orchestra at Gloucester. The principal was Carl Weichsel,
a Saxon, who seems to have been at first an oboist, but
later a convert to the clarinet, and possibly the first specialist
in this instrument.
He played in the orchestra of the
King's Theatre, Haymarket, and was apparently in addition
a musician in one of the regiments of Footguards. He
played again at Gloucester in I769. After this date we
hear little of him. Parke, himself an outstanding oboist,
describes him as a clarinet player of eminence. His wife,
a pupil of J. C. Bach, was a well-known public singer at
Vauxhall and elsewhere, and his daughter, Mrs. Billington,
the most accomplished singer ever produced by this
country. It has been suggested that Bach may have written
his clarinet parts especially for his friend's benefit.
A word or two must be said about military bands, which
played an important part in popularising the clarinet during
the last decades of the eighteenth century. These assumed
a definite form only after the Peace of 1763. The norm
adopted by Frederick the Great was usually followed, i.e., two
oboes, two clarinets, two horns, two bassoons, an enlargement in fact of the old clarinet and French horn alliance.
The players were at first invariably foreigners-civiliansand only rather later attested soldiers. In the I780's the
numbers were increased by the addition of trumpets,
serpents, flutes, and percussion. Occasionally oboes gave
way to additional clarinets. Thus in 1783 the H.A.C. band
consisted of four clarinets, two horns, two bassoons, one

59
trumpet. At first carinets were mainly pitched in C, or

very occasionally in D, but towards the turn of the century
the clarinet in Bb becomes the normal military instrument
as it is of course to-day; in fact, Dr. Busby whose military
music was issued as a supplement to the British Military
Library of I798-9 writes for no other. His simpler scores
are written for clarinets, horns and bassoons, the more
elaborate demand the addition of flutes, trumpet and
serpent. At first only the footguards, Royal Artillery, and
some other corps d'dlite appear to have possessed bands,
but in the last years of the century the numbers were very
largely increased. This is shown by the number of extant
instruments. To the best of my knowledge no clarinet of
English manufacture exists which can be dated before
I775; there are very few belonging to the period I775-85,
but after this date numbers of five and six-keyed instruments survive.
In addition to popularising the clarinet, military bands
discharged two other important functions. They provided
a valuable training school for players and a reservoir of
trained performers. The Footguards, in particular the
Coldstreams, Eley's East India Company's Volunteer Band,
as well as the numerous militia bands, were pre-eminent in
this respect, and many of the clarinettists with whom we
shall presently deal received their training as military
musicians.
So far our clarinettists have been Germans, doublehanded performers, or at best converted oboists. We now
have to deal with two British born musicians, professional
clarinettists in the moder sense of the word. They are
John and William Mahon, members of a remarkably gifted
family, resident in Oxford in the latter half of the eighteenth
century. The parents must have had some close connection
with the Music Room, as the whole family seems to have
taken part in the performances held therein. In addition
to John and William (born in 1746 and 1750) there were
five daughters, all gifted with exceptional voices. At least
two of them, Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Second, attained
considerable eminence as public singers, and a niece, Mrs.
Munday, afterwards Mrs. Salmon, won enormous success
as a festival and oratorio singer in the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. From November, I772, down to the
summer of 1784 clarinet concertos figured frequently in
Oxford programmes, and in 1774 we hear of a " symphony
with clarinets" by Gossec. It is unfortunately quite
impossible to disentangle the activities of the brothers.

6o
From 1773 to I81I or later a " Mr. Mahon " took part in
the Three Choirs Festival; from I778 to I823 in the
Birmingham and other provincial festivals. William Mahon
died in i816, aged 65. The Gentleman'sMagazine speaks of
him as an ornament to the musical profession, as leader of
the concerts in Salisbury for thirty years, and esteemed the
first performer on the clarinet in England. He played at
the Opera House and, apparently, in the Philharmonic
Orchestra for the first three years of its existence. He was
also a fine violinist. His brother John survived till I834,
his last years being spent in Dublin. He was no doubt a
fine player and a good musician, a composer too, for a song
" Hope, Thou Cheerful Ray of Light" was introduced by
him into Shield's opera The Woodman at Covent Garden in
I796 and sung by Mrs. Second, his sister. The feature of
it was a clarinet obbligato and no doubt he was the " Mr.
Mahon" who, according to Parke, played it so finely. In
1803 he compiled a New and Complete Preceptor for the
Clarinet.2 This was not the first English tutor, for several
had appeared during the last twenty years of the previous
century. These were, however, jejune, anonymous affairs,
collections of easy tunes, only redeemed from insignificance
by their engraved frontispieces. Mahon's was a more
ambitious work, a quarto of more than sixty pages. In it
he gives tables of fingerings for the five-keyed clarinet,
which presumably he played himself, and for a seven-keyed
" Clara Voce" or " Corno Bassetta." The basset horn is of
the double-curved variety, which was in vogue both here
and on the continent till the nineteenth century was well
advanced. He gives, too, transposition tables for clarinets
in D, which he describes as " good for noisy music," C,
B , Bb, and A. Longman & Broderip's Clarinet Instructor
of circa I780 and Bland & Weller's New and Compleat
Instructions of I798 give tables for C and Bb clarinets
only.
The opening years of the nineteenth century call for
little comment. The clarinet was strengthening its position
2 This tutor only came to the notice of the writer after this paper
had been read; its existence was entirely unknown. The publishers
were Goulding, Phipps and D'Almaine. The basset horn was, like the
early cor anglais, bent in the middle for convenience in playing. A
good specimen of this model by Cramer of London may be seen in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. A later specimen by Key in the writer's
possession, made between I825-40, is entirely straight except for a
Mahon's corno bassetta
slightly bent crook to carry the mouthpiece.
descended to low C sounding F, but lacked the two lowest semitones
Eb and Db.


as a member of the orchestra, and more players were
becoming available. The leading professionals were still
the Mahons, John and William. Both were connected with
Covent Garden, and William was occasionally called on
for a concerto between the acts of a Lenten oratorio. A
Mahon too, as we have seen, was usually found as principal
in the orchestras at provincial festivals, the number of
which was increasing. A curious feature of the orchestra
at Covent Garden in I8oI was the presence of two corni di
bassetto. They appeared not only in the first performance
of Mozart's Requiem, but also in Acis and Galatea, Messiah
and the Creation. They were played by Munro and Leffler
junior. It was not the first appearance of the basset horn
in London, for in I789 Messrs. David and Springer, two
well-known itinerant virtuosi had given most "finished
performances" upon them. They were then described as
" novel instruments to this country." The programme of
the Salomon concert of April ist, I791, also contained a
concerto for corno di bassetto. The player of it is unknown.
The clarinettists at Covent Garden during the early
I8oo's were Leffler and Gwillam. Subsequently Edward
Hopkins became principal. Hopkins (I778-1869) was
bandmaster of the Scots Guards and went with them to
Paris in I8I 5. He was one of the greatest players of the day,
and, in addition to other duties, was musical director of
Vauxhall. Like many early clarinettists he excelled in
obbligati and accompanied Catalani in Guglielmi's Gratias
Agimus and Braham in Mozart's Parto. He was the father
of three musicians and grandfather of Edward Lloyd, the
famous tenor.
For the purpose of our chronicle the nineteenth century
divides itself very roughly into two periods, fifty years of
progress, fifty years of comparative stagnation, with a brief
revival of interest in the clarinet in the 'go's. The years I 8oo
to I850 were the golden age of wind instrument playing. A
concert, whether metropolitan or provincial, was not considered complete without some form of wind music; if
not a concerto, then an obbligato to support a fashionable
soprano, preferably with a double cadenza. It was also an
age of itinerant virtuosi; Europe seemed to provide an
unlimited supply of flautists, oboists, fagottists, basset
hornists and clarinettists, and these musicians were listened
to as attentively and criticised as thoroughly as contemporary
singers, pianists and violinists. In the 'fifties the interest
seems already on the wane; wind concertos vanish from
programmes; obbligati get fewer and fewer and eventually

62
disappear, and the wind player is relegated to the position

of inferiority in public estimation he has occupied till quite
recently.
And now a few words about the clarinet itself to fill out
the very brief account already given. In 80oo it was still a
very primitive instrument in spite of the eight or ten keys
it had acquired. This was due to the clumsiness and
unreliability of the mechanism. In I8I2 Iwan Miiller an
itinerant Russian virtuoso, entirely remodelled the instrument with the help of the Paris maker, Gentellet, raising
the number of keys to thirteen. Theoretically, the clarinet
was now much improved, even omnitonique,but practically
the mechanism was still defective, and some thirty years or
more had still to elapse before it could be considered
reliable. This reliability coupled with general excellence
of workmanship was contributed by E. Albert of Brussels,
and his instruments were those specially favoured by
English players during the second half of the century.
During the first half-century London makers3 supplied the
English market, thirteen-keyed clarinets for soloists, six to
ten-keyed instruments for the bulk of regimental and
militia bands, and church musicians. They were smallbored, slender instruments of yellow boxwood, with thin
tapering mouthpieces. The reed, attached by twine, was
little more than half the size of the modern reed and rested
against the upper lip in playing.4 The tone in the bottom
register was weak and unresonant, but not unpleasing in
the upper from treble C up. Till the time of Albert the
intonation was very defective, but again better in the upper
than in the lower register. The general appearance of the
early instrument is shown fairly clearly in Zoffany's picture
of the Sharp family. It is regrettable to have to add that
English makers contributed little or nothing to the
3The best-known London makers were: I775-I8oo, Collier,
Miller, Cahusac; i800-5o, Key, Cramer, James and George Wood,
Bilton,Monzani,Clementi,Prowse,Ward. Mahillonof Brusselsalso

suppliedmany instrumentsto the Englishmarket. His instruments
wereconsideredlittle inferiorto these of Albert,and weremuchused
by militarymusicians.
4 It is difficultto say when the practiceof restingthe reed against
the upperlip was discontinuedin England. John Hopkinsonin his
New and Complete
Preceptor
for the Clarinet,publishedin the I840's,
states: " Foreignersplay with it [the reed]downwards,the contrary
is practisedin England." Fetis ascribedthe superiorityin tone of the
Germanschooloverthe Frenchto the Germanpracticeof playingwith
the reed downwards. Berrintroducedthe Germanmethodinto the
Paris Conservatoirein I831.

63
amelioration of the clarinet. One Gutteridge,5 a retired

bandmaster of Cork, contrived an ingenious system in the
1820's, but it came to nothing, being too advanced for the
makers and players of the day. I843 is an important date
in clarinet history. In this year some of Boehm's ideas,
already applied to the flute, were applied to the clarinet by
the French virtuoso Klose, and the Paris maker, Buffet.
The mechanism of the new instrument was so ingeniously
contrived that it has survived without any major alteration to
the present day. To-day it is used by the majority of players,
and its use is all but obligatory in colleges of music. It is
satisfactory to be able to record that British makers after a
long period of somnolence at last awoke to its advantages,
and at the present time make this model better than anybody else. It was, however, not till the I890's that the
advantages of the Boehm system began to be recognised in
this country. This was due in no small measure to the
excellence of Albert's Belgian instruments, although the
innate conservatism of wind players must also be taken
into account.
Tonally there has been less change than might have been
expected. A general widening of the bore and an increase
in the dimensions of the reed and mouthpiece have made
the tone of the chalumeau fuller and freer, but have effected
the upper registers considerably less.
The foundation of the Philharmonic Society in I8I3 may
be taken to mark roughly the end of the primitive and
beginning of the middle period in British clarinet playing.
It marks, too, the beginning of a higher standard of music
performed. The concertos performed by the Mahons
were no doubt of their own composing, but soon the works
of Mozart, Weber, and Spohr were to have a hearing. The
clarinettists of the new Society were Mahon, Oliver and
Kramer. Histories and programmes of the Society supply
no christian name for Mahon, but as he did not play after
the I815 season, it may have been William, who died as we
know in I816. Christian Kramer was a well-known player,
more celebrated possibly as master of George IV's private
band than as a soloist. He was capable of playing all the
instruments himself and brought his team of forty-two to
5 William Gutteridge was bandmaster of the Wiltshire
Regiment.
He proposed his modifications as early as I 813, but the execution of
them was delayed by the ordering of his regiment to Spain. He wrote
a tutor for his patent clarinet in 1824. His improved instruments were
made by Clementi. A specimen is preserved at the Royal College of
Music.
6 Vol. 68

64
a state cf the greatest perfection.6 Why the other Mahon

was not brought in we cannot say. Possibly he was already
too old. The wind players got quickly off the mark, performing in the first season alone a serenade, a notturno,
and a "full piece " of Mozart, and Beethoven's Septet. In
the latter Kramer took the clarinet part. In I8I6 the name
of Iwan Muller appears, playing in Beethoven's Septet, an
octet by Ries, and a quartet of his own composition. This
was the Russian virtuoso already alluded to as an improver
of the clarinet, who spent half his life touring Europe. He
was a fine player no doubt, but probably inferior in taste
and style to Barmann who followed him some two years
later. To-day he is remembered only for his reformation
of the clarinet. Whether the Philharmonic engaged him
for the season while searching for a permanent player is not
clear. In I819 came Heinrich Barmann of Munich, the
close friend of Weber, who described him " a truly great
artist and a glorious man," of Meyerbeer and of Mendelssohn.
He played a fantasia of his own composing and took part
in a septet also of his own for clarinet, strings and horns.
He played, too, at the Lenten oratorios at Covent Garden.
But evidently his reception in London was less cordial than
in Paris and his influence correspondingly less. His compositions, like Muller's, have more educative value than
interest, and no doubt some Weber7 would have pleased
his audiences better. Evidently Willman did not shrink
from comparison with him, since we find him some weeks
later at the Philharmonic playing in Beethoven's Septet
and wind Quintet. It is time to say something about this
great English player.
To say Willman was the first great English clarinettist is
possibly unfair to the Mahons, but of his remarkable talents
there is no doubt. Obscurity surrounds the date and place
of his birth. He was according to Grove the son of a German
who settled in England in the second half of the eighteenth
century and became a bandmaster. Possibly the father is
to be identified with the John Willman who composed songs
6 The band numbered forty-two musicians; two corni di bassetto,
two serpents and four bass trombones were included. Eisert was a
brilliant first clarinet.
7 Stohwasser played Weber's Concertino at the Reading Festival in
this year. It was written for Barmann in I8I1 . A Stohwasser preceded
Willman as professor of the clarinet at the Royal Academy. The
Concertino is still one of the most effective items in the clarinettist's
repertoire, and has been brilliantly recorded by Charles Draper,
Reginald Kell, and several others.

65
for Irish Volunteers in the I780's and described himself as of

the 4th Horse. The son, Thomas Lindsay, was probably
born early in the I780's, and no doubt studied at first
under his father. Subsequently he became a pupil of the
famous Christopher Eley, who came to England about
1783 in charge of a regularly attested band of twelve
musicians, recruited in Hanover for the Coldstream Guards.
Eley was also bandmaster of the East India Company's
Volunteer Band and it was probably in this once famous
organisation that Willman, together with Harper the
trumpeter, gained his experience. In 1817 he became
principal in the Philharmonic, holding the post till I839,
and dying in the following year. He was also bandmaster
of the Coldstreams, resigning, possibly owing to pressure
of work, in 1825. He was principal clarinet at the King's
Theatre and at every provincial musical festival large or
small ranging from Edinburgh and Dublin to Bristol. He
was, with Robert Lindley, the cellist, Dragonetti, the
bassist, and Harper the trumpeter, one of the " draws" of
the festivals, and bitter complaints were expressed in the
musical press when local patriotism displaced him one
year at Hereford and parsimony another at Norwich. He
excelled in concerto and obbligato playing. During his
twenty-three years with the Philharmonic he appeared ten
times as soloist, twenty-two times in obbligati and thirty
times in chamber music, then permitted at these concerts.
He played in addition to some humdrum compositions by
Barmann, concertos by Weber, Spohr (No. i) and Mozart.
The latter, played in I838, it is interesting to note, was
regarded as a trivial work, possibly spurious, and a product
of the " laboratory of Mr. Andre." The obbligati played
were those to Parto and Non piu di fiori by Mozart, both
sung many times, and to works by Paer and Sacchini. The
chamber music included the Septet of Beethoven, the Octet
and Nonet of Spohr, the Mozart wind and clarinet quintets.
At provincial musical festivals the standard of music was
lower, and here Willman did not disdain to play down to
his audience in such items as Bochsa's Variations on Cease
your Funning for basset horn, and in the celebrated accompaniment to Guglielmi's Gratias Agimus. No festival for
some thirty or forty years was complete without this piece
of bravura. And what sort of player was he we may ask.
A very fine one, if we may trust the critics of the
Harmonicon, Musical World and Atheneum, who are
invariably almost fulsome in their praise. His special
virtues would seem to have been charm of style, a fine tone,

See p. 65, et seq.

66
and great expressiveness, especially in obbligati. Not

infrequently the singer-and singers could sing in those
days-is condemned in no measured terms, while the
accompanist, in contrast, is handsomely complimented. No
doubt Willman was a popular idol, and we might suspect
the critics of partiality or insular prejudice were it not for
the testimony of two foreign musicians, Fetis and Mendelssohn. Fetis spent three months in England in I828 and
criticised English musicians with considerable severity. Of
the wind players Willman almost alone is praised
unreservedly by Fetis who admitted he had never heard an
" equivocal" sound issue from his clarinet. Then
Mendelssohn in a letter to his old friend Heinrich Barmann,
possibly contemplating another visit to England, warns him
of the popularity of Willman, who is " all in all" to his
English audiences. Again, would singers of the eminence
of Catalani, Sontag, Malibran, Grisi, Mrs. Salmon and
the rest have tolerated anything but a highly skilled and
artistic accompaniment to their roulades ? His association with Mrs. Salmon8 was specially successful. This lady
was the leading English soprano of the period. According
to the singer Henry Phillips " her voice was rich and full
like the clarinet, and when Willman accompanied her it was
difficult at times to distinguish the voice from the instrument." Is it fanciful to suppose that the quality of her
voice was influenced by the clarinets of her two uncles, the
Another successful association was with
Mahons ?
Malibran whom he accompanied many times in her
favourite Non piu di fiori.
In addition to the clarinet and basset horn, Willman also
played the bass clarinet, and was possibly the first Englishman to do so. George Wood, one of the cleverer London
makers, had produced such an instrument in I833. He
accompanied Mrs. Shaw in a solo specially written by the
Chevalier Neukomm for her and for his " bass clarone," as
the instrument was then called, several times in 1836.
I have stressed the popularity of clarinet obbligati to
draw attention to their entire neglect in the present day.
How often does a present day audience hear those two fine
arias Parto or Non piu di fiori, or Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem
8 Eliza Salmon, nde Munday (1784?-I849) made her debut in I803
One of her aunts, Mrs. Second, according to
and retired in i825.
Parke, sang up to F in alt with ease, and was considered inferior only
to Mrs. Billington. Another, Mrs. Ambrose, sang at the Three Choirs
and other festivals. Three others also had fine voices.

67
Felsen ? The clarinet never shows to better advantage than

in accompanying a first rate singer.9 It is not suggested
that the modern composer should turn to obbligato writing,
but the occasional performance of some of the old favourites
might not come amiss; and for students, both singers and
clarinettists, I cannot imagine a better or more salutary
discipline.
Of Willman as an orchestral player we have less information. He shone especially, as might be expected, in Mozart's
EF Symphony, where he introduced the practice of playing
the first time of the trio of the minuet forte, the repeat
double piano. As a bandmaster his influence was very
great. An anonymous writer some forty or more years ago
asserted that clarinet tone was in general "goosey "-an
ominous word-at this period, but that the tone of the
Coldstreams was true and refined. A modern historian of
this band writes: "With the appointment of the latter
[Willman] the Coldstreams began to lay the foundation of
their fame . . . Under him the band became a veritable
school for clarinet playing. Out of it came Henry Lazarus,
the famous clarinet virtuoso. Even to-day this band is
noted for its fine clarinet playing; indeed it would seem
that the hand of Willman is still upon it. Eminent performers like Pollard, Maycock, Burton and Thomas were
all Coldstreamers." Of the players mentioned we shall
.notice Lazarus and Maycock presently.
A tribute is due, I think, to the toughness of these early
wind instrumentalists. To play a concerto on the clarinet
is even to-day a ticklish job, as so many small mechanical
troubles may supervene. To play it on the primitive instrument then available after a fatiguing and occasionally
dangerous coach journey of many hours must have required
nerve and courage of a high order. During the festival
season in the autumn of each year the leading London professionals formed a sort of travelling circus, travelling from
city to city, staying four days in each, and giving seven
lengthy concerts in cathedral and shire hall. Mrs. Salmon
sometimes travelled 300 to 400 miles in a week giving a
concert every evening. And accidents were not unknown.
9 GeorgeHogarthwritingin the MusicalWorldaboutWillman,says
"He peculiarlyexcels in playingobligatoaccompaniments
. . . and
those who have listened with delight to Gratias agimus,Parto, Non piu
di fiori sung by one of our first vocalists,and accompanied

by him,
cannotbut have remarkedthe exquisiteskill with whichhe develops
thebeautiesof hisowninstrument,
while,atthesametime,he strengthens
insteadof impairing,the expressionand effectof the voice."

68
Lindley was once at least thrown out of his coach, cello and
all. Harper, the trumpeter, was severely injured in the leg
when the express coach "Mazeppa" overturned when
taking him to the Gloucester Festival. He was not, however, to be deterred from playing his famous obbligato to
Let the bright Seraphim with his usual brilliance. In the
concert hall itself things were not always what they should
have been. Readers of Spohr's Autobiography will no
doubt remember the concert hall at Glogau, the basement
a shambles, and the first floor a theatre; they will remember,
too, the showers of dust, cherry stones, and apple peelings
which descended on the musicians and audience beneath,
when a trap door in the ceiling of the concert hall was
inadvertently opened. They may remember, too, his
account of a nightmare concert near Hamburg. Here is an
excerpt from it, describing a mishap to a clarinet concerto,
only one of several untoward incidents, and not made the
less vivid by the naive language of the German translator:
" Hermstedtlo now followed with a difficult composition of
mine. He, emboldened now to rashness by the fumes of
the champaign [sic] had screwed on a new and untried
plate [reed] to the mouthpiece of his clarinet, and even
spoke vauntingly of it to me as I mounted the platform. I
immediately anticipated no good from it. The solo of my
composition began with a long sustained note, which
Hermstedt pitched almost inaudibly and by degrees
increased to enormous power. This time he began also in
the same way, but just as he was about to increase to the
highest power, the plate twisted and gave out a mis-tone,
resembling the shrill cry of a goose. The public laughed,
and the now suddenly sobered virtuoso turned deadly pale
with horror. He nevertheless soon recovered himself, and
executed the remainder with his accustomed brilliancy."
And then there is Berlioz's story of la grande clarinette, W.
and his unfinished concerto. I will not bore you by quoting
from it, but would recommend those unfamiliar with the
story to read it in the racy original of Les Grotesquesde la
Musique.
So much by way of interlude. Far be it from me to
suggest that such incidents were of frequent occurrence,
but curious things could happen in concert halls even in this
country. At one Norwich Festival Lindley played a cello
o?Johann Simon Hermstedt (I778-I846) was Kapellmeister of the
Ducal Orchestra at Sondershausen. He was a personal friend of Spohr
who wrote four concertos for him.

69
concerto with an umbrella held over his head to protect

him from the rain pouring through the roof of St. Andrew's
Hall. But the extravagant fees demanded by foreign
singers, their vanity, their greed for applause, their
unpunctuality in fulfilling engagements, their fondness for
unmeaning cadenzas and ornaments, are among the chief
subjects of criticism. The instrumentalist as a rule gets
away with it. Willman, as we have seen, was acquitted by
Fetis of emitting sons douteux, " equivocal sounds " as his
translator euphemistically renders it, and only his execution
comes in for occasional criticism. Thus he appears to have
found Spohr's first concerto heavy going, and the high Ab
in the Romanza of Weber's second a definite " poser," but
here his kindly critic finds an excuse in the heat of the
concert room. Again, this is what he says of Willman's
playing of Beer's Fantasia at the Norwich Festival of 1836:
" The performance could not fail to captivate the least
cultivated admirer of the art; and such are the languishing
and voluptuous tones which this fine player produces that
we can readily give credence to the observation attributed
to Spohr-that he devoutly wished he had studied the
clarinet in preference to the violin. The concerto was,
however, better played at the rehearsal; so much depends
upon the reed, the temperature of the room, and the ease
and repose of the performer, that this is a circumstance,
which, with us, excited no surprise." An unusually kindly
critic for the period.
Willman died late in I840, his end accelerated by his
exertions at the numerous autumn festivals. In preparing
its readers for the inevitable demise of their favourite the
Musical World points out that there are now other talented
performers available, among them the Messrs. Williams,
Bowley, Dean, and Lazarus. Of these Williams, and
Lazarus in particular, merit more extended notice.
Before passing on, however, it may be as well to glance
very briefly at the provinces. Oxford, as we have seen, was
a centre of clarinet playing in the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, and not an isolated centre, since we
find a Mr. Wright playing a clarinet concerto at Durham
in I792, and at Cambridge Pieter Hellendaal made fairly
frequent appearances as a clarinet virtuoso just before and
just after the turn of the century. An intensive search of
local newspapers might reveal other such examples. The
general tendency was, however, for provincial players of
real talent to migrate to London. This was the case with
the Mahons of Oxford and with Joseph Williams of

70
Hereford, whom we shall presently consider. As a general

rule London provided the principals for local festivals.
For the first forty years of the nineteenth century these
were the Mahons, John and William, Willman and Powell,
occasionally Williams and Egerton Senior, to be followed
later by Lazarus, Maycock and Julian Egerton. The
principals were on occasion supplemented to the number
of four or six at big festivals by local talent. Thus at Derby
in I83I Willman and Powell had Irving and Woodward as
colleagues, and at Dublin in the same year Willman was
supported by three Dubliners in Halliday, Norton and
Tighe. Occasionally the great men are dispensed with
entirely. Thus at Reading in I819 the clarinets were
Stohwasser, who played the Weber Concertino, and
Pickworth. A year or two later Willman was called in as
principal, but is replaced by Middleton, a local player, at
a later festival. This, however, is exceptional, and may
have been done to save money. Other well-known
local players were Hervey of Bath and Bristol and Leonard
of Liverpool, both considered little inferior to Willman.
Manchester seems to have been self-supporting from about
I850. At the festival of I836 Willman and-Powell have two
local players in Blomiley and Glover to support them.
Rather later H. P. Sorge takes his place as a prominent player
and soloist; he in turn yields to a German, F. W. Grosse,
who settled in Manchester in the early I850's, becoming
principal in the Halle orchestra in 1858, a position he held
till his death in 1887. In i855 there was a contest for
"clarionet bands" at Belle Vue, when eight bands competed. The test pieces were Semiramide Overture and the
finale of Beethoven's C minor Symphony. The experiment
was not apparently repeated, and, although the North has
produced some fine clarinettists, interest has for long been
mainly centred in brass bands.
Joseph Williams was a younger contemporary of Willman.
A native of Hereford, he was born in I795 and died in I875.
He was a violinist and pianist, as well as clarinettist and
composer. In 1837 he was appointed leader of the Queen's
Private Band, with the veteran Eisert as second, and
became subsequently a director of the Philharmonic. His
earlier career appears to have been rather overshadowed by
the superior popularity of Willman, whom he occasionally
replaced at festivals much to the indignation of the critics,
his later career by the brilliance of Lazarus and of various
foreign virtuosi. He succeeded Willman as principal at the
Philharmonic in I840, and appeared fairly frequently when

7I
basset horn and clarinet obbligati were needed, also in wind

chamber music. The critic of the Musical World comparing
a Paris performance of the Mozart Eb Symphony in I852
with that of the Philharmonic speaks of "the exquisite
playing of Williams and Lazarus." He was not without
merit as a composer. He played a concerto of his own at
the Hereford festival in I819, and was the compiler of the
first satisfactory tutor for his instrument to be published
in this country." According to the Musical World he had
the parts of the Mozart clarinet concerto in his possession
for twenty years before Willman played it in I838.
Before passing on to Lazarus it may be as well to notice
some of the foreign virtuosi who visited England between
I836 and 1850. Here are some of them. Liverani, Itjen,
Blaes, Beerhalter, Cavallini, Meyer, Belletti. The number
of them indicates the popularity of the clarinet at this period.
Only two of them, Blaes and Cavallini, merit attention.
Joseph Blaes paid two visits, in I841 and I845. He was a
pupil of Bachmann at the Brussels conservatoire and from
all accounts a most finished and artistic player. Whether
he had any influence cannot now be determined, but any
influence he exerted would have been for good, since his
principal characteristic was delicacy of style. He played
a concerto by Hanssens at the Philharmonic, poor stuff
according to the critics. Cavallini was a player of an entirely
different type, bold, impetuous and dashing. His volubility
was such that he was at once known as the Paganini of the
clarinet. But he had few gifts apart from prodigious
execution. He played on an instrument primitive even for
those days, and was in consequence vastly inferior in tone
and intonation to the best English players. He played
twice at the Philharmonic in I842 and I845, choosing
fantasias of his own composition. Objections were raised
by the Directors to his choice, but he declined with spirit
to play anything else and in the end won the day.
The probability is that the bulk of these foreign artists
were in no respect superior to their English contemporaries,
certainly not to Lazarus. That is if we are to believe the
critics; for the curious English habit of self depreciation
had not yet come into vogue. To most music lovers,
certainly to those of a past generation, Henry Lazarus was
the clarinettist par excellence. His special importance lies,
" Written before Mahon's tutor came to the writer's notice.
Williams's work is of a more substantial and modern nature and incorporates many exercises from Klose's Boehm clarinet tutor of I844.
Williams used a thirteen-keyed instrument.

72
I think, in forming a link between the older and the modern

His
schools, between Willman and Charles Draper.
career was extraordinarily long, all but sixty years, from
1835 to I892. He was coming to the front just when the
clarinet had reached its height of popularity; he saw this
popularity decline and saw the wind instrumentalist finally
relegated to the position of inferiority from which he has only
lately emerged. It is a tribute to his great abilities that he kept
some interest in his instrument alive in a period of dullness
and depression. He was born in I815, the son of a private
soldier, was trained under Blizzard at the Duke of York's, and
under the elder Godfrey in the Coldstreams. His earliest
instrument seems to have been the now forgotten Alto
Fagotto,12 in all essentials a wooden saxophone, but he soon
devoted himself to the clarinet. He made his concert debut in
I835 and gave his official farewell concert in 1892, but he contined playing in charity concerts almost up to his death in
I895. It would be tedious to enumerate all the positions
he held, but here are some of them. Starting his career as
second to Willman at the Sacred Harmonic, he succeeded
him as principal at the Opera in I840. For more than thirty
years he was in the Philharmonic; he was engaged at the
Birmingham Festival from I840 to I885, and appeared at
most of the other provincial meetings. For many years he
was professor at the Royal Academy, and from I858 at
Kneller Hall. These were his more important public
engagements, but his services to chamber music were
equally important. He was frequently engaged to play at
Ella's Musical Union concerts, which began in I845, and
later at the Popular Concerts in St. James's Hall. In I855
he founded the Anemoic Society for the performance of
wind chamber music. It was in music of this intimate
nature that his qualities were most clearly shown. These
were fine tone, good style, and masterly phrasing. Friends
of an older generation have often told me of his classic
performance in his especial favourites, Mozart's clarinet
Quintet and the Beethoven Septet. In his earlier days he
12 Alto Fagotto. This was the invention of a Scot, William Meikle,
and was made by George Wood, who published a tutor for it about
1830. In appearance it resembled a tenoroon, and has often been mistaken for this instrument. It was blown with a small clarinet mouthpiece, was made in three pitches, and had a compass of three octaves.
It was in effect a wooden saxophone, anticipating Sax's invention by at
least ten years. A description of this instrument and a discussion of
its nomenclature will be found in an article by the present writer in
the Musical Times for December, 1932.

73
had been one of Jullien's solo clarinets, and in I85I performed a concerto by Molique'3 at a Philharmonic concert.
He also carried on the old tradition of obbligato playing.
Details are fortunately available of the instruments he used.
Till I855 these were of the primitive English type, made by
Key of Charing Cross, a twelve-keyed Bb and a ten-keyed
A, of boxwood, with the addition of a ring key on the lower
joints, an invention of the 'forties. In I855 he changed to
a much more complicated pair of instruments made by
Fieldhouse which incorporated some features of the Boehm
system, and were calculated to give greatly increased freedom of execution. The keys were of more practical design
and mounted on modem pillars, a great improvement on
the older mechanism. In I860 he changed again to instruments made by E. Albert of Brussels. This was in a way
a retrograde step, as the Belgian instruments were merely
much improved versions of Miller's thirteen-keyed system
and much less advanced than those designed by Fieldhouse.
The outstanding virtues of these instruments were good
tone and intonation obtained by a larger interior bore and
an improved mouthpiece. Tonally they have never been
excelled and rarely equalled. They had been introduced to
England by another of Jullien's soloists, Wuille, a Belgian
and a brilliant performer. Critics immediately noticed the
" massive richness " of his tone, especially in the chalumeau
register, where the earlier instruments were specially
defective. The influence of these Belgian instruments on
English clarinet playing was very great, in two directions
especially. Firstly they fixed a definite standard of fine tone,
secondly their all round excellence diverted attention from
the Boehm system. This latter influence was important
since it retarded development of fluent technique till the
turn of the century. Lazarus knew the Boehm system
sufficiently well to recognise its merits. He had a basset
horn of this system,'4 though whether he used it we do
not know, and he certainly prophesied the eventual adoption
of this clarinet by the majority of players. We can only
assume that he found the Albert clarinet adequate to his
own needs and was content to teach the system he knew best.
'3 This concertohas neverbeenprinted. The nextclarinetconcerto
to be heardat the Philharmonic
was Stanford's,played by Charles
Draper in I904.
14 Date about x860.
Lazarus occasionally played basset hom

obbligati in his earlierdays. The instrumentis
with the name
of Pask, a London maker, but is probably ofstamped
French manufacture.
Fieldhouse was a London maker.

74
A well-known contemporary of Lazarus was J. H.

Maycock who died in 1907, aged 89. Like several other
famous players he came from the Coldstreams, where
Willman's influence, as we have seen, was very strong. His
fine playing at the opera soon attracted the notice of Balfe
who wrote many obbligati to display his skill. The
best known of them are the corno di bassetto introduction
to the Heart bowed down and the bass clarinet solo in The
Daughter of St. Mark. He made a speciality of the basset
horn and bass clarinet, and seems to have been the first
regular performer on the latter. He was second only to
Lazarus in popularity, especially at provincial festivals, and
resembled him in possessing dignity of style and a fine tone.
Like Lazarus too, he excelled in chamber music and for
some time ran his own combination of players. He took
the first basset horn in Mozart's Serenade for thirteen wind
instruments (K. 361) played for the first time on April Ist,
I857. This fine work is seldom played to-day for lack of
basset horns, and rarely in its entirety.
Two very well-known artists must now be mentioned
who form an important link between the later years of
Lazarus and the moderns. They are George Clinton and
Julian Egerton. Clinton was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne
in 1850, and studied under his father, a well-known bandmaster and clarinettist. When only seventeen he was
appointed principal in Queen Victoria's private band, a
In I873 he was principal in the
position he held till I900.
Philharmonic, appearing five times as soloist. In I874 he
succeeded Pape, a German, at the Crystal Palace, where
he remained twenty-four years, appearing frequently as a
soloist in the Mozart, Weber, and Spohr concertos. It was
here that he established his great reputation. He had great
influence as a teacher, holding professorships at the Royal
Academy, Kneller Hall, and Trinity College. He adhered
throughout his life to the old Albert system, so his influence
in this respect was possibly reactionary. He was an ardent
chamber musician and formed a society which gave frequent
concerts in the early 'nineties for wind instruments, alone
or with strings. Not only were many old works performedmost of them now forgotten-but a stimulus was given to
the production of new compositions. In execution he was
extremely brilliant and in his earlier life far in advance of
his contemporaries; he was also, in spite of a certain
downrightness, a most conscientious and thorough musician.
He was, too, of an inventive turn of mind and made some
important contributions to the improvement of the clarinet,

75
giving thereby an important stimulus to English clarinet

manufacture.'5 His final model was a mixture of the
Albert and Boehm systems, elaborate in mechanism but
not unpractical, and worthy of adoption by players of the
Albert model who have not the time or opportunity to
make a complete change of fingering. His brother, James,
was also an excellent player, and had as well considerable
inventive abilities. He dissipated these in contriving a
combined A and Bb clarinet. The idea is attractive in
theory and on paper, but, however well the intricate
mechanism is contrived, it is a failure in practice. It is
usually found that the instrument is faulty in intonation at
both pitches, and that the resonance of the tube is stifled
by the weight of the keywork, that is on the rare occasions
when the mechanism works at all.
Julian Egerton, whose father had played with both
Willman and Williams, was another prominent clarinettist,
and a contemporary of Clinton. He played with the latter
for many years in Queen Victoria's private band. He was
principal, too, at many of the provincial festivals, and at
the Richter concerts in London from the time of their commencement in 1876. He was well known to habituds of the
St. James's Hall where the Beethoven Septet and Schubert
Octet were regularly given twice each season. Egerton,
like Clinton, adhered to the old system and played on a
pair of instruments made by Fieldhouse. They were
similar in design to those used by Lazarus in the 'fifties
and were of ebonite, possibly the first instruments to be
made of this material. They had originally belonged to
George Tyler,'6 a very fine clarinettist, who died in 1878.
Egerton played on these instruments regularly till the change
15Clinton's instruments were made by Messrs. Boosey, who turned
their attention to clarinet manufacturein the early I88o's. They have
since achieved a very high reputation for excellence of workmanship
and accuracy of tuning. His brother's combination clarinet was made
by Jacques Albert of Brussels. A company was formed with Sullivan
as chairmanto promote its use, and recitals were given upon it at the
R.C.M., by Gomez, Clinton and others. All George Clinton's clarinets
incorporatedthe Barret action which was borrowedfrom the oboe and
applied to the clarinet by both Mahillon and Albert of Brussels.
I6 George
Tyler was a member of the Royal Italian Opera orchestra
and of the Philharmonic.
The Musical Directory spoke of his death
" as an almost irreparableloss " to the R.I.O. Another Tyler-Josephpatented a C# key, a very valuable addition to the old system clarinet.
The credit of this invention was also claimed by Lef6vre of Paris, as
well as by Albert and Mahillon. The Boehm clarinet was advertised
by Rudall Rose in I854-5, and pictured by Tamplini in The Bandsman,
published in January, I857.

76
from high pitch to low forced him to acquire others. Some

ten years ago he showed them to me, and even after seventy
years they were still in excellent condition, a tribute to
excellent workmanship. He told me, too, of his sorrow
when the change of pitch forced him to abandon his old
friends. The chief feature of his playing I have been told
by friends and pupils were extraordinary beauty of tone,
and the charm and finish of his style. Both were still
apparent when, as an octogenarian, he played in a wireless
concert some years ago. He had great success and
popularity as a teacher, especially at the Royal College,
where he succeeded Lazarus in the early 'nineties.
There are not wanting signs that English clarinet playing
in the early 'nineties was in need of some external stimulus.
In spite of the efforts of Lazarus, Clinton and Egerton,
interest in the instrument had noticeably declined, and,
though wind chamber music was fairly frequently performed
by two rival societies, the performances tended to be
rather unimaginative. Audiences, too, were small. Again,
although composers were demanding more and more from
their wind players, the leading English clarinettists, Clinton
excepted, were quite content with their instruments, which,
apart from minor improvements in mechanism, had received
no important amelioration for close on half a century. The
Boehm model which had freed so many continental players
from the trammels of mechanism, was almost entirely
neglected in this country. A solitary pioneer is found in
James Conroy, an army bandmaster and pupil of Lazarus.
He bought a pair of Boehm clarinets quite early in the
'sixties and demonstrated them to Lazarus. The latter gave
him his blessing, prophesied a future for the system, but
did nothing more about it-so far as we know at any rate.
Doubtless there were other such pioneers, amateurs possibly
-for amateurs having nothing to lose professionally are
often instrumental in spreading new ideas-but amateurs
of the clarinet were few and far between at this period.
Professionals are notoriously conservative; Lazarus and
Clinton could not be expected to re-study their instruments
in the midst of a professional career, but they could reasonably be expected to have imparted the Boehm system to
their pupils. They can hardly be acquitted of selfishness
in not doing so. It was left to a foreign clarinettist to make
the system more widely known in this country. This was
Manuel Gomez, a Spaniard, and a prize winner of the
Paris Conservatoire who came to London in the late
'eighties. He was an excellent musician and a quite excep-

77
tional executant. His talents soon secured him the post of

principal at Covent Garden, and later in the newly formed
Queen's Hall Orchestra. His execution caused even greater
astonishment when it was noticed that he played everything,
however elaborate, on his Bb clarinet,17 disdaining the use
of an A entirely. The lesson was not lost upon two young
players, recent scholars of the R.C.M., Charles Draper and
George Anderson, who took immediate steps to acquire
Boehm instruments. With their courageous example begins
a new chapter in English clarinet playing. The younger
professional players followed their example, hesitatingly at
first, but the seed was well and fairly sown. English wood
wind makers did what they could to oppose the innovation.
They had never made Boehms, and did not recommend
them for the military with whom most of their business
was done. Their attitude, in fact, was frankly obstructionist
and reactionary, and lasted well into the present century.
Within the last thirty years, however, there has been a
complete change of heart, and to-day clarinets of Boehm
and other complicated systems are made in greater perfection in this country than in any other in the world.
Another stimulus from outside was provided by Richard
Miuhlfeld, clarinettist and sub-conductor of the Meiningen
Orchestra, who paid many visits to England between 1892
and I907. Muhlfeld was a sensitive musician, pianist and
violinist as well as clarinettist. The imaginative and
essentially artistic quality of his playing had inspired
Brahms to write his clarinet works especially for him. Three
reasons for the mild furore he caused are discernible:
I. The freshness and originality of the works themselves.
2. The interpretative ability and musicianship of the
player.
3. The preference for a foreigner, which, formerly confined to foreign singers, had during the last fifty years
extended itself to instrumentalists as well.
There is no doubt whatever that Miihlfeld was a fine
artist; whether or no he was a fine clarinettist is a different
17 This necessitates the addition of an extra key for the low Eb at
the bottom of the instrument. Sax made this addition in his improved
clarinet in I840. Stadler, Mozart's clarinettist, had extended the downward compassfrom E to C as in the basset horn and some bass clarinets,
but his example was not followed, and Eb is now accepted as the limit
of downward extension. Gomez made some additions and improvements to the Boehm clarinet. His complicated instruments were made
for him by Messrs. Boosey.

78
matter. There are good reasonsto suppose that in tone, intonation, and execution he was considerably inferior to Clinton,
Charles Draper and several others. He played on the
clumsy Birmann system clarinet,'8 which fortunately
inspired no following. But his visits certainly gave a much
needed fillip to clarinet players, to composers too, even to
musical journalists, who took the opportunity of rediscovering the clarinet and writing some pretty nonsense
about it. The interest, however, was shortlived; by the
end of the century the clarinettist was more or less where
he was some ten years before.
We are now on the threshold of modern history, and at
the point where this sketchy chronicle must end. I had
hoped to do more than merely allude to two clarinettists,
whose influence during the last thirty years or so has been
of the highest importance, Charles and Haydn Draper.19
I am not forgetting Lazarus and Clinton and the rest, when
I suggest that they have had a more decisive influence on
English clarinet playing than any other players. Between
them they have determined the character of the modern
English school, which, to my mind at any rate, yields to no
other in vigour and accomplishment.
To mention
individuals is invidious and unnecessary, but here are some
general notes about their attributes.
Tone.-Our players from the time of Willman have
always excelled in beauty of tone. To define this beauty is
difficult, but here are some of the ingredients-robustness
and firmness without harshness, warmth, and a perfect
clarity, which, as in singing, comes largely from perfect
intonation.
Technique.-English players have always been notable
sight readers and executants, even when natural agility has
been hampered by old fashioned mechanism. To-day, when
the use of the Boehm system is all but universal, virtuosity
is commonplace. It is by no means rare to find students
i8 Called after Carl Barmann
son of Heinrich. It is an
(I8ii-85),
improved Muller system clarinet. The Germans and Central Europeans
have never taken kindly to the Boehm model.
I9 Haydn Draper was the nephew and pupil of Charles DraperCharles Draper has retired, at any rate for the time, from the exercise
of his profession. Haydn Draper died some years ago in the full maturity
of his powers. Like his uncle he was a scholar of the Royal College and
was by way of being an accomplished player while still in his early
'teens. The present professor at the R.A.M., Mr. Reginald Kell, is one
of his pupils. Mr. Frederick Thurston, the brilliant principal clarinet
of the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, is a pupil of Charles Draper.

79
in their teens with more technique at their command then

their precedessorsof thirty or forty years ago had acquired
in full maturity. It is not entirely a matter of improved
mechanism; there seems to be an ever increasing natural
aptitude.
Musicianship.-Herethe influenceof the colleges has been
makingitself felt for a generationand more. Unimaginative
playingis rarerthan it was half a centuryago, when recruitment was largely from military bands. This is not to say
that the militarymusicianis, or was, necessarilyinsensitive,
but the civilian enjoys advantagesdenied to the soldier, and
a solid backgroundof education and general culture goes
a long way in creatinga finished artist.
APPENDIX.
Notes on Saxophone,Basset Horn and Bass Clarinet.

The history of the saxophone in England begins with
the Alto Fagotto, which Lazarus played as a boy in the
band of the Royal Military Asylum. It was in principle a
wooden prototypeof the saxophone,precedingSax's invention by almost fifteen years. It was a pleasanttoned instrument, but apparently made little appeal, and was soon
forgotten. The saxophonein its modernform was apparently
introducedto this countryby Jullienin 1849. It was played
by one Sommer. It appearedagain in I852 in the hands of
Soualle,a very capableperformer. This time the Manchester
Guardiansaw fit to call it the Corno-musa. From the fairly
accuratedescriptionit was plainlyone of the largermembers
of the family. Another brilliant performer was Jullien's
Belgian clarinettist, Wuille, who played the bass clarinet
as well. It sprang again into a shortlived popularity in
I865, when at Mellon's promenadeconcerts a Frenchman,
Cordier, performed some striking solos upon it. Jullien
fils, who was running an opposition series of concerts, set
about finding a rival to Cordierand selected Tyler for the
part. The latter may be classed as possibly the first
English saxophonist. For the next twenty-five years or so
the instrument appears to have been all but forgotten, in
London at any rate, so much so that when E. Mills, an
excellent Brussels-trainedclarinettist, performed on it in
I89I, it was described by a London paper as the " almost
obsolete saxophone-something between the horn and
bassoon."
7 Vol. 68

8o
The basset horn, as we have seen, was played on by most

of the early clarinettists. In fact for the first half of the
nineteenth century it was a very popular instrument both
in solos and obbligati, and there can have been no dearth
of players, since two players were forthcoming to accompany Miss Jane Shirreff20 in a concert in the 'thirties, but
it appears to have lost ground later in the century. There
was certainly some trouble in finding players for the wind
chamber music concerts in the 'nineties. Francisco Gomez,
a brother of Manuel and a no less accomplished player,
made efforts to revive it just before the last war and was a
fine performer. It seems doomed, however, to appear in
text books of orchestration, to be rediscovered, and to disappear again. The modern French form of the instrument,
in which the extra keys to carry the instrument down a
third below the ordinary clarinet are appropriated to the
little fingers of both hands, is not in my opinion, so satisfactory as the older model in which they are assigned to
the thumb of the right hand, and this may be one of the
reasons why the modern player fights shy of it. But we
should not forget that Mozart originally wrote2' the
clarinet concerto for it, and gave us several masterly examples
of its proper employment. In the orchestra it might very
properly be used to reinforce, even to replace, the weak
middle register of the bass clarinet, and to continue down
the chalumeau notes of the orchestral clarinet. In Mozart's
Requiem, at any rate, the use of basset horns should be
insisted upon; to-day they are almost invariably replaced
by A clarinets to the great detriment of the tone colour
intended by Mozart.22
The bass clarinet, too, has been noticed in passing. It
made its appearance in London in 1833, and was played
occasionally by Willman in obbligati, and later by Maycock
in both obbligati and solos. It came into the limelight in
the I850's, again in solos, when it was played by the
20
In Al desio di chi t'adora at an Antient Concert in I834. This
brilliant rondo for soprano was written by Mozart in July, 1789, for
insertion in Figaro. The obbligati parts for 2 basset horns are florid and
The work might well be added to our concert programmes.
effective.
21 " Sketched " would be more correct. Mozart broke off work on it
after 199 bars of the Allegro and on taking it up again in I79I re-wrote
the work for clarinet. The slow movement is particularly well suited
by the placid, reedy tone of the basset horn.
22 The most
striking feature of the basset horn is its reediness due
to the length and smallness of its bore. This is entirely lost when it is
replaced by one of the orchestral clarinets or by the alto or tenor
clarinets. The latter have a more vigorous and open tone.

8I
Belgian, Wuille. There was for long a tendency to regard

it as a poor relation of the clarinet, as a " doubling " instrument for any clarinettist not of the first rank. This in the
writer's opinion has been the fault of composers who have
not made sufficient use of it, and who forget, or even do
not realise, what good use can be made of it, not only in
the orchestra but also with strings in chamber music.
Francisco Gomez, already mentioned as a bassethornist,
was also a most capable bass clarinettist, and in the present
day no more finished artist could be desired than Mr.
Walter Lear Bass clarinets have long been made in great
perfection in this country. English players have always
preferred the big bored model first introduced by Sax in
contrast to the slighter toned German model, which is
little more than an enlarged basset horn.
Of the contrabass clarinet it is necessary to say very
little. Efforts were made during the nineteenth century to
produce such an instrument, but with no very satisfactory
result, and it was not until the last decade of the past
century that Messrs. Besson of Paris produced a more or
less passable instrument. Some of these were imported
into this country, and M. Bretonneau came from Paris to
demonstrate their capabilities, but the instrument was
found defective in intonation, and, in addition, unwieldy
and complicated. A few were acquired for the use of the
military, but were soon discarded. Of the later and more
satisfactory models recently evolved by two Paris makers,
Buffet and Leblanc, little or nothing appears to be known
by our orchestras and military bands.23
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Altenburg, W. Die Klarinette. Heilbronn, 1904.

Schlesinger, K. Articles on Basset Horn, Bass Clarinet,
Clarinet in Encyclopedia Britannica, I th edition.
Cambridge, 19o0.
Street, Oscar W. " The Clarinet and its Music." Proceedings of the Musical Association, 42nd Session, 1916.
Carse, A. Musical Wind Instruments. London, I939.
Carse, A. The Orchestrain the XVIII Century. Cambridge,
I940.
23 Contrabass clarinets are found in several French and
Belgian works
bands. The Garde Republicaine possesses one in addition to two
bass clarinets. The Buffet instrument is made of wood, the Leblanc of
metal. M. Houvenaghel, the technical adviser to the latter firm, has
also evolved a sub-contrabass, two octaves lower than the bass.

82
Royal Military Exhibition, I890. A Descriptive Catalogue of

the Musical Instruments. By C. R. Day. London, 89I.
Quarterly Musical Magazine London, I818-28.
Harmonicon London, I823-33.
Musical World
London, I836-91.
Athenaeum London, I828- .
Musical Opinion London, I877- .
Musical Standard London, I862- .
DISCUSSION.
The CHAIRMAN
(Sir Percy Buck): Ladies and gentlemen,
the first duty of the Chairman, which is also a pleasure, is
always to thank the reader of the paper.
I belong to the generation which can well remember the
playing of Clinton and Egerton. I do not think I have ever
heard such beautiful tone got out of a clarinet by anybody as
Egerton used to produce. That may be a dream of youth,
but I always think of him as having made the most perfect
sounds I ever heard. I also like to remember that Charles
Draper and I got our scholarships at the Royal College of
Music on the same day, and have been friends ever since.
The clarinet is tuned to equal temperament so that it can
sound a complete chromatic scale. But, having finished the
lower register the player must blow the third partial of the
bottom note to get a B, and that B cannot be in equal
temperament. Is the interval from Bb to Bi out of tune ?
Mr. RENDALL: In practice it is often out of tune, the Bb
being sharp, the Bt flat. But on modern instruments there

are many different fingerings which give slightly sharper
and flatter notes when they are wanted. A good player
who is playing with strings or accompanying a singer, will
unconsciously adapt himself. It is possible, especially with
the type of instrument I have here, to alter the intonation
appreciably.
The CHAIRMAN: I remember when I first had lessons in
orchestration, I was forbidden to write a shake for the

clarinet on At. I asked why, of course, as any sensible
pupil would, and I was told that there was a mechanical
difficulty, the At being on the lower register and Bt on the
upper; but I could not help wondering whether it was
because there was an enharmonic difference between the
notes. But, as you say, the player can definitely alter the pitch.
Mr. RENDALL: Yes.
On this instrument
there are three
differently tuned F#'s, so the player can adapt himself

83
without any trouble whatever. That is why the instrument

does not sound at its best with the piano. The instruments
do not blend; in fact, they do not suit each other at all.
The shake on A$ is now practicable and easy on all modern
instruments. It is merely a question of an additional key.
Mr. LLEWELYNLLOYD: The lecturer has explained about
the method of altering the intonation. Is that a matter of

mechanism, or is there any control over the intonation
through the lips, as there is in some other instruments ?
Mr. RENDALL:Lip control exists in theory, but largely
in theory. It is possible to influence the intonation
very slightly, possibly a vibration or two with the lips.
Alterations of pitch can also be made mechanically. This
was the case with the three F$'s I mentioned just now,
with their varying degrees of sharpness. Or, notes can be
sharpened or flattened by opening or obstructing tone holes
just below the note which is sounding. In this instrument the middle Bb[ is always sharp, so it has to be
flattened by the player putting his fingers down. He may
also slacken off the lip pressure without thinking of it; in
fact, I think any really good player will do so automatically.
I was hoping that some members might have personal
reminiscences of some of the earlier players, of Lazarus,
or Maycock, for example.
The CHAIRMAN: I remember
Lazarus's name being on
the programme when I went, fifty years ago, to the Philharmonic Concerts. I myself have conducted an orchestra
in which Egerton and Clinton were playing.
The LECTURER:I have heard a good deal about Clinton
and Egerton, and also heard Egerton play on the wireless when
he was eighty-four or so; in fact, I believe he is still living.
The SECRETARY: In the library of the Royal College of
Music there are the archives of the Wind Instrument

Chamber Music Society, which I assume is Mr. Clinton's
Society, presented by Mr. Arthur Frere. Mr. Frere was,
I believe, the Secretary of that Society for some years.
The LECTURER:There were two of those Societies. The
original Society split into two in consequence of a quarrel.
I think yours is the one which Clinton controlled.
The SECRETARY: I think it was suggested
in the early
part of the paper that Mozart might have heard the clarinet
for the first time in London. If so, may it be assumed that
London was in the eighteenth century ahead of the Continent in using and fostering clarinet playing ?

84

The LECTURER: No, not of Germany.
If you admit
that Handel used the clarinet then it was probably rather

ahead of France. But they had a good many clarinet players
in Paris round about 1750. No, I think we were very much
in the same stage except for M. Charles. He is a very
obscure person. We have his Twelve Duettos for two French
Horns at the British Museum, but that is the only work of
his I know, and that is very rare, I believe.
The CHAIRMAN:Who invented that horrible little thing
called the Eb clarinet ?
The LECTURER: It probably
came in about
80oo-15,
with the development of the military band. There is one

even more horrible, the one in high Ab.
The CHAIRMAN:They are only defensible on the ground
that an open air band must have brilliancy.
The LECTURER:Yes. Still, the D clarinet is used by
Richard Strauss.
Mr. BATE: The lecturer more or less categorically
denied the player's ability to blow a note up or down. Now
I am a player of moderate ability, but my experience has
been rather the reverse. I wonder whether the lecturer
agrees with me on the following point. I find that when
one is in the lowest register or round about B and C in the
middle of the staff, it is extremely difficult intentionally to
blow up or down. But round about the A or Bb-the
"throat" notes-it is very much easier. At least I find
that on my pair of instruments. Is it possibly due to the
fact that the reed has more dominance in the partnership
of reed and resonant air column when the column is shorter ?
Is the reed then less firmly governed by the column of air
below it, and therefore more susceptible to deliberate lip
pressure ?
The LECTURER:Yes, I certainly think that the shorter
the air column the more easily is it influenced. I do not
think the notes at the bottom of the tube can be blown up
or down appreciably. I have never been able to do so.
Mr. BATE: I agree there, but when the player is on the
upper half of the tube the facility begins to come.
The LECTURER:In my opinion the professional player
does it much more by opening other keys to sharpen and
by closing other keys to flatten.


Mr. ROYLE SHORE: I should
like to ask whether
85
the
lecturer ever heard what I once heard and have never forgotten. Somebody prophesied when the concertina was
invented, that it would oust the clarinet from the orchestra.
Did anybody ever hear that grotesque prophecy ?
The LECTURER: NO, I cannot say I ever heard that.
Mr. ROYLE SHORE: My knowledge of the clarinet
is
limited to an instrument which Professor Bantock once lent

me for a special purpose. It was described as a Montenegrin
clarinet. I do not know how many keys it had. I used it,
not for orchestral purposes, but for snake charming and
growing a mango tree.
Miss SCHLESINGER: I should like to thank the lecturer
for giving us information on a field of knowledge on which

I knew little. My work has dealt almost entirely with ancient
instruments and with the predecessors of the clarinet.
One point might perhaps be of interest, and that is, on the
production of the upper register on the clarinet from the
chalumeau register. I once wanted to know whether it
could be produced in the same way as in the ancient instruments mentioned by Aristotle and various other writers of
ancient Greece, namely, by shortening the length of the
little tongue which produces the beating reed. If the reed
is inserted into the instrument-a little pipe-and produces
say C, D, E, F from the first three holes, and the player
then shortens the little tongue by a third of its length and
blows, the fundamental rises to the fifth. The size of the
vibrating part of the modern clarinet reed is so infinitesimal
compared with that of these little ancient mouthpieces,
that it is rather difficult to see whether the clarinet player
is really conscious of what he does. He probably does
shorten the vibrating portion of the reed unconsciously
with his lip, but as the total vibrating distance is only about
half an inch, whereas in the other it was anything from
one inch to one and three-quarters or two inches, he might
not be at all conscious of the fact that he is influencing the
tone, because those notes that are produced from the
chalumeau register are not harmonics. They have not the
harmonic quality. Then where do they come from and
how do they come ?
The fact is that the note is born in the reed mouthpiece
itself. The tube of the clarinet is but the resonator. I
have given an explanation of the process together with a
formula (for the ancient clarinet) for computing the pitch
in vibration frequency of notes, from the length of the

86
vibrating tongue, which provides an answer to the question

in my book.4
The LECTURER: I am afraid that is rather beyond me.
I have always understood that they were harmonics.
Miss SCHLESINGER:
But you would
not consider
that
they had the harmonic quality, would you ?

The LECTURER: Yes, I see your point.
No, I do not
think they have really, but I have always been told they
were.
Miss
SCHLESINGER: I asked
Charles
Draper
himself
that question, and he did not at all agree with my suggestion,

but when I asked whether he always kept the reed exactly
in the same position in his mouth to play all the notes, he
said, " Oh, no, we move the lips up and down on it," or
something to that effect.
The LECTURER: I do not think the player always knows
what he is doing. He is so used to doing it that, like a
singer, he does it without thinking about it.
Miss SCHLESINGER:It is quite easy to see that one could
stop one-third of a vibrating reed which has only about

half an inch to vibrate, without being conscious of it.
If so, the modern player is a true descendant of the
ancient Greek one.
The LECTURER: I have here a photograph of the opening
page of the Handel Overture in D,25 which is possibly the
first piece of music written for the clarinet in England.
I also have a portrait of Willman26and some instruments.27
The CHAIRMAN
proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer
coupling with it an expression of gratitude to Mr. Oldman
for having read the paper. The motion was carried with
acclamation.
24 The Greek Aulos (Methuen),
pp. 96-103;
and io6 seq.
25Fuller Maitland and Mann, Catalogueof the Music in the Fitz-
william at Cambridge, p. 221.
See the frontispiece to this volume.

included a facsimile of an ancient Egyptian reed pipe lent
by Miss Schlesinger,a facsimile of a two-keyed clarinet lent by the
President, a five-keyed clarinet by Collier, London, circa I775, several
early nineteenth century boxwood instrumentswith from six to twelve
keys, two sixteen-keyedinstrumentsby Fieldhouseand Albert,formerly
used by Lazarus, and two Boehm clarinets (one an early model) by
Buffet, Paris.
26
27 These


Clarinet England Eighteen Century

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Clarinet England Eighteen Century

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A Short Account of the Clarinet in England during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Author(s): F. Geoffrey Rendall

This content downloaded from 200.131.73.123 on Mon, 15 Dec 2014 11:13:38 AM

SIR PERCY BUCK, D.Mus.,

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE CLARINET IN

(Read by CECIL OLDMAN)

THE present paper is mainly biographical in purpose. It

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The Clarinet in England

such uncommon instruments as the bass flute, bass recorder,

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The Clarinet in England

information about this pioneer of the clarinet would be

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The Clarinet in England

In November, I760, the combination of horns and

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The Clarinet in England

trumpet. At first carinets were mainly pitched in C, or

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The Clarinet in England

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The Clarinet in England

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The Clarinet in England

disappear, and the wind player is relegated to the position

Bilton,Monzani,Clementi,Prowse,Ward. Mahillonof Brusselsalso

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The Clarinet in England

amelioration of the clarinet. One Gutteridge,5 a retired

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The Clarinet in England

a state cf the greatest perfection.6 Why the other Mahon

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The Clarinet in England

for Irish Volunteers in the I780's and described himself as of

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See p. 65, et seq.

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The Clarinet in England

and great expressiveness, especially in obbligati. Not

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The Clarinet in England

Felsen ? The clarinet never shows to better advantage than

di fiori sung by one of our first vocalists,and accompanied

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The Clarinet in England

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The Clarinet in England

concerto with an umbrella held over his head to protect

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The Clarinet in England

Hereford, whom we shall presently consider. As a general

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The Clarinet in England

basset horn and clarinet obbligati were needed, also in wind

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The Clarinet in England

I think, in forming a link between the older and the modern

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The Clarinet in England

Lazarus occasionally played basset hom

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The Clarinet in England