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| Dear Kjeld, What a horrible disaster Ryoichi Kawai’s country is faced with. Let’s hope that the worst nuclear disaster can be avoided and that our Japanese friends, Ryoichi & Mieko Kawai and the band members of the NEW ORLEANS RASCALS & their families, will continue to be safe in the southern part of Japan, as Ryoichi told me in his e-mails of March 16 & 30, 2011. Although I am less interested in clarinets right now (see above) I have come across a very nice metal Albert clarinet made by Henri SELMER of Paris in 1934. It was overhauled by a professional repairman but still had some faults. After making a few adjustments it plays very well now: 1) I had to turn back a little the adjusting screw of the upper joint’s Ab key that crosses the A key as the clarinet sometimes squeaked when going down to the lower tones. 2) And on the lower joint I had to enlarge the key openings of the three lowest keys, which are in one row, as their tones (F, G, A respectively C2, D2, E2) sounded not full but dull. . |
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| This metal Albert clarinet, made in France for SELMER’s London agent with the trade name “Sterling”, was originally obtained in England some years ago. It’s identical to my SELMER “Master” metal Albert clarinet except for the bell which isn’t detachable but fixed and made of silver-plated brass and not of silver-plated German silver like the whole body and the barrel. Further differences are the plain barrel (which isn’t a screw adjustable joint) and the tenons with their counter-parts. Concerning the sound qualities there are no differences between both models – the cheaper “Sterling” (serial # 4944) sounds as good as the “Master” (serial # 4925). Both metal clarinets have a large bore of 15,2 mm. Kindest regards, . |
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