Rare Double Boehm System Bb Clarinet Experimental By Charles Houvenaghel

Description

One of the rarest clarinets ever manufactured. This is a Double Boehm system clarinet designed by the legendary Charles Houvenaghel. This particular instrument is rarer still in that while most of the few dozen or so Double Boehm clarinets are hard rubber, this instrument is made out of wood. The Schakelton collection doesn’t even have a wooden version!
There isn’t a lot of information on these instruments out there so I will do my best to explain the thought behind the design and what advantages they have over a standard Boehm system instrument. To start, imagine a clarinet with no keys, only 6 holes for the main fingers and one for the thumb. One could tune this instrument so that you could play an ascending G scale by simply lifting one finger after another. This is the design of all clarinets made from the earliest Denner models up until the Muller clarinet. This arrangement works well for neutral keys, but what happens when you have to play in other keys? To play an ascending C scale you have to use a cross fingering or a forked fingering/side key for the F natural, breaking the smooth progression of lifting one finger after another. Same for the Bb in the F scale. In comes the modern Boehm clarinet. Now (ignoring other keys besides those 6 holes) we can play an ascending C, F and G scale by simply lifting one finger after another. This greatly simplifies many passages and is the reason Boehm system is so popular.
So now the questions is, what comes next? Well what if we follow the logical progression and add more scales that can be played by lifting one finger after another? To do this we make it so the left hand mirrors the right hand. So in this system Eb is (x xoo|ooo), E is (x oxo|ooo) and all other notes are the same, with the exception that F# can now be played with the middle finger or the index finger. Now we do not need to use the side key to play Eb, so the Bb scale can be played by simply lifting one finger after another (up until A at least) just like the other 3 neutral scales. This is the genius of the Double Boehm system. Theoretically if one where to become proficient on this system they could play some passages with more fluidity than a standard Boehm player. Unfortunately this genius idea never caught on and there are only around a dozen known instruments left.
In addition to this, this instrument also features a plate on the left hand 1 tone hole to help in playing altissimo notes.
This clarinet is not just a museum piece. It was previously overhauled and is in excellent playing condition. Plating is a bit worn in places but is mostly intact. Wood looks excellent, there are no cracks on the body but there were some repaired cracks in the barrel an a surface check on the inside of the bell that does not seem to affect anything. Even comes with the rare original mouthpiece. Comes with a hard case. I hate to sell this as I know I will never find another similar instrument and I am fascinated with Charles Houvenaghel, however I need to downsize my collection.