I have just acquired a Koch treble recorder from EBay. From what
I can see on the web, Koch (the father) was the pioneering maker
of recorders in the US, and his son carried on till about 1970 or
so. There's nothing to identify the date - just "Koch" marked on
the block (of all places). Made of cocobolo, I believe. It's a
remarkable instrument, brilliant and powerful, worth far more (to
me, anyway) than I paid for it.
But there is an oddity of the design I don't get. The mid-section
to foot-section joint is corked as normal. The head to midsection
joint is bare wood against wood - the most virtuosic piece of turning
I've ever seen (I suppose cocobolo is so hard and stable you can get
away with treating it like metal). But the tenon goes twice as far
into the head than normal - there is a lower wider-bore part that
clears the midsection tenon by about a millimetre all round.
Why? One guess I had was that you could put some sort of sleeve in
to convert it to A=415, but that would be so far out of tune as to
be musically useless, surely? Or am I missing a corps de rechange?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin
I have a complete set of Koch recorders from the '50's: tenor, in c; alto, in f; soprano, in c:, and sopranino in F. I bought the alto in 1958, and the rest in the early 60's. I have a fitted hard-size case for them, custom made. They are pitchedat A-440. I'm interested in selling, if you desire. I recently used the alto to play Brandenburg 4 with a professional orchestra.
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e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin
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