The late renowned teacher and New York Philharmonic bassoonist, Simon Kovar, recommended to his many pupils (including Sol Schoenbach, Bernard Garfield, Elias Carmen, Stephen Maxym, Arthur Kubey, Charles Sirard, Arthur Weisberg, and many others) two remarkably well-made German bassoon reeds. These were by Carl Mechler (Moeckler to some) and by Wilhelm Knochenhauer. Other famous pre-WW II reedmakers included Kurt Ludwig, Hans Weber (still living and formerly the frequent supplier of reeds to the great Walter Guetter of Philadelphia), and a maker named Eisenhardt.
Through the interest and research of Richard E. Plaster we have some enlightening drawings of actual examples of representative reeds from three of these reed-makers: Mechler Knochenhauer--and Eisenhardt.
Richard's comments included:
I recently had a chance to study two original Knochenhauer reeds, one still playable. They were visibly wider than the imitations made now, so I measured the broken one and drew it, took it apart, boiled the halves, flattened them, measured them, and drew them (also). Upon making new reeds to these dimensions I find that I prefer them to the narrower versions, since they are more sure-fire and give a wider range of possibilities for adjustment of tone and dimensions. I wish I had known about this twenty years ago.
The Mechler (Moeckler) drawing shows an intact sample from (Benjamin) Kohon, and the dimensions not available from an intact reed are taken from the (Jack) Spratt Moeckler-shaped cane finished to duplicate the intact model from Kohon.
The Eisenhardt dimensions were from two different samples, one intact and the other taken apart and flattened after boiling.
