Danna Sundet, administrator of the archives and music library of the late John Mack, brought to our attention an interesting piece of ‘Tabuteauviana’:
I came across 94 pieces of cane wound together with the initials MT [Marcel Tabuteau] and JR [Joseph Robinson] in the John Mack Collection. When I asked Joe Robinson about the cane, he said:
“The kilo of tube cane from Maurice Deriaz that rescued my first evening with Marcel Tabuteau in March 1963 [see page 485 in the Storch biography] was shared with John Mack, along with some of the other tubes we collected from the time Tabuteau and I went cane hunting in the Var. The informal deal I had with John Mack was that if I procured cane from some of the growers whose names he gave me, he would prepare it and share it with me. But I was still was not making my own reeds, so I never received any of that cane gouged and shaped from JM. The 94 pieces only pre-gouged with Tabuteau’s and my initials must be from those tubes that were sent to John Mack in 1963!”
After my inquiry, Joe sent the following additional information:
“Danna Sundet inquired last night about the 94 pieces of pre-gouged cane. My first thought was, could that have been the cane I received from Marcel Tabuteau for $25 in the fall of 1965 (for which there is a Customs receipt in a glass case in the Oboe Studio at the Curtis Institute). These pieces of cane [see below] had wondrous capabilities not entirely revealed by my eye-straining measurements soon after I received them.”
“It remains the most extraordinary confirmation of Tabuteau’s claim: ‘The gouge is EVERYTHING!’ that John Mack interrupted my Barret etude mid-phrase in a lesson at Marlboro one morning to ask ‘Where did you get that gouge?!’”
“Reeds made from those pieces of cane appeared almost closed after clipping; but they grew full-sized openings as they were scraped, permitting a huge range of tonal possibility from creamy ppp to dramatic fff without ‘spreading.’ I continue to believe that the guide-to-cane diameter ratio forced the cane open during gouging in a way that avoided too-thin sides and caused them afterwards to curl toward the center.”
“[You are right that] Tabuteau disregarded proper pitch in his serenades to the French Alps; but I watched him scrape long-tip reeds and play on them almost immediately. His shaper in 1963 was wide and nearly parallel until its elegant and rather sudden descent to the top of the staple.”
“Danna, the 94 pieces of pre-gouged cane you asked about with Tabuteau’s and my initials marked on them are undoubtedly from 1963 and intended for me if I had needed them gouged and shaped.”
I will update this page if more information should be forthcoming. —D.S.