The Clarinet

The clarinet belongs to the woodwind family and uses a single reed. Its body has a nearly cylindrical bore and ends in a flared bell. The instrument comes in many sizes and pitches, forming the largest woodwind family, from the massive BB♭ contrabass down to the tiny A♭ piccolo. The most common version is the B♭ soprano clarinet, and this is the instrument people usually mean when they say "clarinet."

The word "clarinet" likely entered English through the French *clarinette*, a feminine diminutive of Old French *clarin*, or from the Provençal *clarin* meaning "oboe," both going back to the Latin *clarus* for "clear." It is related to the Middle English *clarion*, a type of trumpet with the same root. The earliest known use of *clarinette* for the instrument appears in a 1710 order from the Duke of Gronsfeld for two instruments made by Jacob Denner. The English form "clarinet" shows up by 1733, while the now-outdated "clarionet" was used from 1784 into the early 1900s. A player is called a clarinetist (North American English), a clarinettist (British English), or simply a clarinet player.

The modern clarinet grew out of a Baroque instrument called the chalumeau. This earlier instrument looked like a recorder but had a single-reed mouthpiece and a cylindrical bore. Without a register key, it was played mostly in its lower register, covering only about an octave and a half. It had eight finger holes like a recorder, with a written range from F3 to G4. At that time, players placed the reed against the upper lip, the opposite of modern practice.

Around the start of the 18th century, German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner (or possibly his son Jacob) added two keys to an alto-register chalumeau. One key opened up a higher register, which did not start an octave above the first like other woodwinds, but rather an octave and a perfect fifth higher. A second key at the top extended the lower register up to A4 and, used with the register key, to B♭4. Denner later lengthened the bell and added a third key to reach down to E3. After these innovations, other makers added more keys to improve tuning and fingering, and the chalumeau fell out of use. The Classical-period clarinet, like the one Mozart wrote for, typically had five keys. Mozart wanted the clarinet to reach four semitones lower, down to C3, which led to the basset clarinet—about 18 centimeters longer—first made by Theodor Lotz. In 1791, Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto in A major for this instrument, with passages going down to C3. By Beethoven’s time, around 1780 to 1820, the clarinet was a standard member of the orchestra.

The number of keys was limited because felt pads did not seal well. Iwan Müller invented the stuffed pad, originally made of kid leather, which, combined with countersunk tone holes, sealed well enough to allow more keys. In 1812, Müller presented a clarinet with seven finger holes and thirteen keys, calling it the "clarinet omnitonic" because it could play in any key, removing the need for differently tuned clarinets. Müller is also credited with inventing the metal ligature and the thumb rest. Around this time, the embouchure changed: the mouthpiece was oriented with the reed facing downward, first recommended in 1782 and standard by the 1830s.

In the late 1830s, German flute maker Theobald Böhm created a ring-and-axle key system for the flute. Between 1839 and 1843, French clarinetist Hyacinthe Klosé and instrument maker Louis Auguste Buffet adapted this system for the clarinet. Their design used needle springs for the axles and ring keys that simplified tricky fingerings. They called it the Boehm clarinet, though Böhm was not involved and the system differed from his flute design. Other key systems followed, many based on modifications to the Boehm system, such as the Full Boehm, Mazzeo, McIntyre, Benade NX, and Reform Boehm, which combined Boehm keywork with a German mouthpiece and bore.

The Albert clarinet was developed by Eugène Albert in 1848. Based on the Müller clarinet with some keywork changes, it was also called the "simple system." It featured a "spectacle key" patented by Adolphe Sax and rollers to improve little-finger movement. After 1861, a "patent C sharp" key by Joseph Tyler was added to other clarinet models. Improved versions of Albert clarinets were built in Belgium and France for export to the UK and US.

Around 1860, clarinetist Carl Baermann and instrument maker Georg Ottensteiner developed the patented Baermann/Ottensteiner clarinet, with new connecting levers that gave multiple fingering options for some pads. In the early 20th century, German clarinetist and maker Oskar Oehler introduced a clarinet using similar fingerings to the Baermann but with significantly more tone holes than the Böhm model. This became known as the Oehler system clarinet or German clarinet.