Friedrich Arthur Uebel (6 August 1888 – 31 August 1963)
was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
woodwind instrument maker. He was owner of the clarinet manufacturer,
F. Arthur Uebel.
Biography
Friedrich Arthur Uebel was the second son
of the woodwind instrument maker, Friedrich Gustav Uebel. On 2 September 1936,
he founded his own workshop in
Markneukirchen
Markneukirchen () is a town in the Vogtlandkreis district, in Saxony, Germany, close to the Czech Republic, Czech border. It lies in the Elster Mountains (part of the Fichtel Mountains), southeast of Plauen, and northeast of Aš (Czech Republic) ...
,
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
having previously learned clarinet making with his father
and having completed in 1911 a traineeship with
Oskar Oehler in Berlin
with whom he worked closely until Oehler's death on 1 October 1936.
He took over Oehler's customer base, continued to make clarinets using the
Oehler system
The Oehler system (also spelled Öhler) is a system for clarinet keys developed by Oskar Oehler. Based on the Müller system clarinet, the system adds tone holes to correct intonation and acoustic deficiencies, notably of the alternately-fing ...
and registered the trademark ''FAU'' in the same year.
Although the main focus was on building clarinets of the German system, the company also made Boehm and
Reform Boehm clarinets.
F. Arthur Uebel's manufacture was considered the most important German clarinet workshop in the second third of the 20th century and in the direct succession of Oskar Oehler, and was honoured with a "diplôme d'honneur" for a newly made bass clarinet and a clarinet at the 1937
Paris World Exhibition.
The most important expert in the company was the tuner Max Schnabel (1893–1979).
Numerous respected clarinettists played on clarinets by F. Arthur Uebel.
The cooperation with these and other artists resulted in some remarkable improvements of the mechanics of the Oehler clarinet, some of which became the standard for professional clarinets, and in a clarinet model that set the standard for decades and is still held in high esteem today, the theatre model 702, an original Oehler clarinet, additionally equipped with all the mechanical improvements developed by Uebel and with hand-forged and extra-strong silver-plated keys.
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At its best, Uebel employed 40 people, mostly men, and made about 400 clarinets a year. The most popular instruments were the student model 520 with 14 keys and four rings, but especially the more sophisticated model 620 with 19 keys and six rings without the above-mentioned improvements. With the death of Friedrich Arthur Uebel in 1963, the glorious period of this manufactory ended with a serial number of about 17,000. own article on this, which also describes the development of the manufacture in the meantime.
References
Sources
* (last paragraph)
External links
Archiv Website about F. Arthur Uebel
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uebel, Friedrich Arthur
1888 births
1963 deaths
Clarinet makers
Businesspeople
German businesspeople
Instrument makers