Iwan Müller

Iwan Müller, sometimes spelled Iwan Mueller (14 December 1786,

, the air-tight pad.

Biography

Müller was born in Reval (present-day

before he was twenty. At the same time, he was constantly striving to improve the clarinet, with new types of keywork. At the time, the standard clarinet used flat brass plates covered in soft leather to cover the toneholes. Since these leaked air, the number of them had to be kept to a minimum, which meant that notes outside the main scale of the clarinet (accidentals) had to be obtained by complicated fingerings which were difficult to play quickly and rarely were in tune. Clarinets would have five or six keys, the bare minimum to obtain an acceptable chromatic scale.

Müller's solution was the stuffed pad, originally made of kid leather stuffed with

clarinette omnitonique

" possible.

In addition to the fingering system and felt pads, Müller is also known as the inventor of metal ligature (that replaced twine, string and wire, widely used in the past and still used today in German-speaking regions), which are used today in almost all single-reeded woodwind instruments.^[1]

Müller went on to work in

, a type of low-pitched clarinet.

In 1809, Müller performed to great acclaim on a clarinet made to his own specifications. In that same year, Müller moved to Paris, gained the support of a wealthy patron, (Mr.) Marie-Pierre Petit, and started mass-producing clarinets.

In 1812, Müller presented his new 13-key clarinet with air-tight pads to the

, the prevalent system in Germany today. He was also, before the famous Hyacinthe Klosé, principal clarinet at the Théâtre Italien in Paris.

References

• Pamela Weston, Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past,
  ISBN 0-9506209-8-X

External links

• Free scores by Iwan Müller at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)