Why The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm?

By the mid-twentieth century, most major manufacturers acknowledged several difficulties with their Boehm-system clarinets, including issues of intonation and tone quality.

Because of these difficulties, around 1950, nearly all of them made significant changes, especially regarding bore sizes and shape. This resulted in the top French factories of the day mass-producing and mass-marketing highly simplified instruments with a poly-cylindrical or reversed conical bore, which to some degree stabilized the intonation of their volatile instruments.

While not improving the basic tone quality, and lacking a fuller fingering system which would have enabled more fluent and musical execution of the standard repertoire, these relatively inexpensive instruments became extremely popular in the post war era—even among professionals.

This era was in many ways the twilight of the so-called Full Boehm clarinet, the fingering system of which offered solutions not available to its overly-simplified successors.

Opting to aggressively market cheap, simple instruments as their best, the major manufacturers also abandoned the more innovative solutions being offered by various master craftsmen.

Among those dissatisfied with these answers were Fritz and Herbert Wurlitzer. It was their Reform-Boehm system that was destined to outlast the other attempts at improving the problems of the Boehm clarinet; and theirs the only one to gain acceptance and praise in one of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras (the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam). Rather than simply hiding the problems through over-simplification of the instrument, the Wurlitzers decided to create a more perfect clarinet.

Wurlitzer’s Reform-Boehm, like the Full Boehm before it, has 20 keys and 7 rings. This means there are no less than seven fingerings for clarion B-flat, each with its own subtlety of tone-color. Likewise there is a fully improved F#-G# trill key on the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm, along with a fork G# option. The double-speaker key enables perfect intonation and fullness of pitch to throat B-flat, and the throat tones do not need resonance fingers to sound fully. The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm also corrects the glaring and inexplicable omission of the opposing clarion E-flat key from mass-produced clarinets, also including rollers between E-flat and C. Below see Dr Stier’s illustrations of pieces from the standard repertoire which demonstrate the basic necessity of the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm to performance.  

Beyond merely technical matters, the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm solved a century-old problem by combining the powerful German bore with Boehm fingering, making it unique in the history of the clarinet for its combination of beauty and facility.

In an earlier day and age, the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm was considered too difficult to obtain and too expensive for the American market. Now the Reform-Boehm is comparable to the list prices of the top mass-produced industry clarinets, with the added benefit that, because the wood has been properly aged and treated, Wurlitzer clarinets never experience “blow-out” so common to assembly line clarinets. A Wurlitzer clarinet will last for generations, and its resale price is considerably higher than a used industry clarinet, for obvious reasons. The Reform-Boehm is therefore both superior in performance and more economical. 

Finally, for the first time in history, the American clarinetist can access this magnificent clarinet, through Wurlitzer Clarinets America.

The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm, once the luxury of the few, is poised to become the American Clarinet of the 21st century. 

Be there when it happens.

Natural. Powerful. WURLITZER.

Learn more about the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm and...

• Brahms
• Mahler
• Mozart
• Weber

Below are some practical fingering advantages of the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm Clarinet for the standard repertoire.

The double venting (see picture on right) of the "register key" allows for perfection of throat tones A/B-flat.

French clarinet "resonance fingerings" for throat tones (left hand fingers 2 and 3, and/or right hand fingers 3 and pinky on the C-key, among others) are unnecessary, as the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm plays with full tone and intonation without them.

This, in turn, allows for both a smoother scale and the perfection of the 12ths in the clarion register.

The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm fingering system solves many profound technical and artistic problems as presented in the brief examples below.

As you explore your own set of Wurlitzer Reform-Boehms, you will find many other applications.

Because of this, you will be freed to express the music, rather than worry about technical details.

Claude Debussy. Premiere Rhapsodie, m.72, b.3.

The clarion A# to B trill, once an mere obstacle, becomes a satisfying moment of Gallic flair:

1 0 3. Trill 3.

Standard Fork Fingering:

1 0 0 | 1 0 0

The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm provides 4 more:

1 0 3

1 0 0 | 0 2 0

1 0 0 | 0 0 3

1 0 0 | 1 0 3 (on sliver/fork key)

Johannes Brahms. Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 120, No.2, I. Allegro amabile, m.83-84.

The problematic "double-fingering" between the C and the E-flat (or B and D#) in this (or any) chord are permanently resolved with the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm.

Just slide the right-hand pinky on the rollers between the E-flat and the C-key...

or use the left-hand E-flat key for the last note in m.83.

Johannes Brahms. Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120, No.1, I. Allegro appassionato, m.8.

In m.8 the infamous jump from C to altissimo E-flat is now quite simple with the Reform-Boehm.

Take the C on the left hand...

and finger the high E-flat:

0 2 3 | 0 0 3 pinky (on E-flat key).

Franz Schubert. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, Op.129. mm.11 to 14.

High C to high D-flat is notoriously difficult on incomplete Boehm systems. Yet with the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm, simply play the D-flat like the high C, adding the 1st 2 side keys on the right hand and the G#/A-flat pinky key on the left hand. This extends the clarion into the altissimo with no break in sound or color, while maintaining perfect intonation.

Carl Maria von Weber. Concertino in E-flat Major, Op.26, m.31

Here is another perfect use of the "extended clarion" fingering for the high altissimo C#: 0 0 0 G#/A-flat key | sks 1 and 2. The line coming down will never "break" between the C# and the B.

Carl Maria von Weber. Concertino in E-flat Major, Op.26, m.27

The G# to A trill, clumsy on the incomplete Boehm, is resolved on the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm.

Simply hold down the G#: 1 2 3 | and the new F#-G# trill key with the 1st finger on the right hand and trill the 3rd finger on the left hand.

The clarion F# to G# trill is likewise solved by the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm.

Hold down the f#: 1 2 3 | 0 2 0

...and trill the new F#-G# trill key with the 1st finger on the right hand.

Johannes Brahms. Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115, II. Adagio, mm.80, 84 and 85.

The low E and E#(F) at fortissimo tends go disturbingly flat on incomplete Boehm systems, spoiling one of the powerful moments in the entire repertoire.

The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm Artist Model No. 185 with low e/f improvement, provides a special venting key, operated by the right thumb on the underside of the instrument below the thumbrest. (This will feel familiar to players of Basset Horn and Bass Clarinet). By opening the "e/f improvement key" at extremely sensitive moments like this, the pitch will balance properly -- resulting in a moment of artistic perfection that sacrifices neither pitch nor power. One hundred years after its composition, the Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm has given every clarinetist the opportunity to fully realize Brahms' music.

Also, opening the e/f improvement key can slightly raise the pitch of every note in both registers that is played by the lower joint.