Q. I am a professional clarinetist and, at the moment, play the C clarinet parts found in orchestral music by transposing the music up a tone on my B-flat clarinet. I am considering buying a C clarinet. Your clarinet is much cheaper than any other make of C clarinet but is it musically up to the job?

A. The late Ted Planas was the acoustic designer of the Lyons C Clarinet. Most clarinet players from symphony orchestras entrusted their clarinets to him when they needed serious alterations such as retuning, or modifications to the internal bore or keywork. He was the acknowledged master of woodwind acoustics and mechanisms, in theory and practice.

Ted based the acoustics of the Lyons C Clarinet on an 1820 clarinet. It thus has a smaller internal bore than modern conventional C clarinets (approximately equivalent to that of a modern E-flat clarinet).

The Lyons C Clarinet is molded in two tranverse halves, which are then ultrasonically welded to form the body. This production method lets undercutting of tones holes and flaring of the bore be molded into the instrument. As you know, these features are vital for optimum tuning of the clarinet between the three registers. The consequence is that intonation and ease of speaking is at least as good, if not superior, to that of modern C clarinets costing four times as much. Since its sound is that of the clarinets of the late Classical and early Romantic eras there is a strong case for playing orchestral C clarinet parts on the Lyons C Clarinet. Despite there being no duplicate keys you can still play smoothly and quickly by sliding the left little finger (pinky) across C#/F# and B/E; and the right little finger between C/F and Eb/Ab, a similar technique to the saxophone. However, rarely-met fast trills and tremolos between those pairs of notes are not possible. Incidentally, if you play an E-flat clarinet, your E-flat mouthpiece (or any make of E-flat clarinet mouthpiece) will fit the Lyons C Clarinet