The heckel-clarina, also known as ''clarina'' or ''patent clarina'', is a very rare

woodwind instrument Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and ...

, invented and manufactured by

Wilhelm Heckel Wilhelm Heckel GmbH, also known simply as Heckel, is a manufacturer of woodwind instruments based in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is best known for its bassoons, which are considered some of the finest available. The company was established in 1831 by ...

Wiesbaden-Biebrich Biebrich is a borough of the city of Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. With over 38,000 inhabitants, it is the most-populated of Wiesbaden's boroughs. It is located south of the city center on the Rhine River, opposite the Mainz borough of Mombach. Biebr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Heckel received a patent for the instrument on 8 December 1889. It was apparently intended to be used for the shepherd’s pipe solo in Act III of

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

's ''

Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...

''. It was used beginning in 1891 at the Festspielhaus,

Bayreuth Bayreuth ( or ; High Franconian German, Upper Franconian: Bareid, ) is a Town#Germany, town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 11 ...

as a substitute for Wagner's ''

Holztrompete A Holztrompete (Wooden Trumpet), generally refers to natural trumpets whose conical or cylindrical blowpipe is made of wood and can be from half a meter to five meters long. The best-known wooden trumpet is the Swiss alphorn. Their design and trad ...

''; the clarina was found more practical and more effective in producing the desired tone-colour. The heckel-clarina is a

single reed A single-reed instrument is a woodwind musical instrument, instrument that uses only one Reed (mouthpiece), reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece as well as the Middle Eas ...

, conical bore instrument made of metal, resembling a

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a small, high-pitched member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented in the 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax. Built in B♭ an octave above the tenor saxophone (or rarely, slightly small ...

. It has the fingering of the oboe and a clarinet-type single-reed mouthpiece. Two versions were available: a sopranino in E-flat and a soprano in B-flat. According to Heckel's promotional materials, the heckel-clarina's tone resembled that of a

cor anglais The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn (mainly North America), is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially ...

in its low

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), ...

, a

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

in the middle, and a

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

in its upper range. The range of the B♭ instrument is: The clarina was found very effective as a solo instrument. The instrument is not to be confused with the heckelphone-clarinet, also a very rare conical bore single reed woodwind by Heckel but lower in pitch and made of wood.

References

External links

Diagram of heckel-clarina
heckelphone-clarinet, and saxophone from 1931 Heckel catalog. Single-reed instruments 1889 introductions {{SingleReed-instrument-stub