The reed and the reed trio

The reed

All of CAPITAL REEDS’ musical instruments have a single or a double reed made from ‘arundo donax’, a clump-forming bamboo-like grass that, in the wild, grows up to eight metres tall and is known to whistle in the wind. The cane from this plant is gouged, shaped and shaven finely down into thin blades that are used to produce our instruments’ sound. The reed player blows either into a mouthpiece onto which one blade of cane is attached (single reed), or into two blades of cane tied together (double reed). The blades of cane vibrate under the player’s breath and set up a sound wave within the instrument’s enclosed air column. The picture opposite illustrates the main difference between our single and double reed instruments.

Image credit Music Science at UNSW

In addition to providing the distinctive form of sound production for CAPITAL REEDS’ instruments, it is worth noting that arundo donax, as a perennial plant that adapts well to a variety of soils and growing conditions, has many other uses including biomass power and bioethanol generation, furniture production, soil erosion control, and feeding livestock.

Arundo donax in New Zealand

Despite its versatility and variety of potential uses, in New Zealand arundo donax is considered to be a potential weed of river and stream margins that can block waterways, promote flooding, provide a habitat for rats and possums, and also pose a fire risk. For this reason, it is listed in the National Pest Plant Accord (NPPA) and the Ministry of Primary Industries’ register of unwanted organisms. If you identify arundo donax on your property, please contact your Regional Council to determine the status of the species and how best to control it. While digging out smaller clumps by hand and destroying them is one recognised control method alongside the use of herbicides, recycling the plant’s bamboo-like stems to make oboe, bassoon, or clarinet reeds has yet to be piloted as a complementary and resourceful form of pest control. Perhaps CAPITAL REEDS can help.

The reed trio - a brief history

The reed trio in our formation of oboe, clarinet, and bassoon became a firmly established chamber music ensemble in the 1920s mainly through the concert activities of the celebrated Trio d'anches de Paris (‘trio d’anches’ literally means ‘trio of reeds’). Not surprisingly, much of the core repertoire for reed trio is French. However, after hearing the Trio d'anches de Paris while passing through the French capital at the time, composers from Eastern Europe also contributed some very distinctive works to the canon of reed trios. CAPITAL REEDS aims to present these works to a wider audience and highlight the French and Eastern European musical styles that characterise the reed trio’s core repertoire.

Long before the concert activities of the Trio d'anches de Paris, however, trios of reeds already existed in different combinations of instruments. During the 1700s, for example, a number of composers, including G. F. Händel, wrote trio sonatas for two oboes and bassoon. Mozart composed five attractive Serenades that were performed frequently in Vienna by a reed trio consisting of three basset-horns (an older type of clarinet pitched a fourth lower than the modern B-flat instrument); and Beethoven later composed trios for two oboes and cor anglais.

Similarly, today – although the reed trio continues to be closely associated with the formation of the Trio d'anches de Paris and CAPITAL REEDS – the term ‘reed trio’ can also refer to any group of three reed instruments, be they clarinets, saxophones (alto, tenor, baritone etc.), oboes, cors anglais, bassoons, contrabassoons, and perhaps even shawms and bagpipes as well.