Barnaby Robson

"I was first given a Légère plastic reed to try by a friend of mine in Australia. Before giving it a blow, my initial thoughts were fairly skeptical..... however, I must say that when I actually tired the reed I was more than pleasantly surprised! Having now had the opportunity to try several different strengths and cuts of the Légère reeds I have settled on using a 3.5. The consistency in the strengths is outstanding - I must say that I've been increasing frustrated by traditional reed manufactures lack of consistency between the grades. With Légère you know exactly what you're getting straight out of the box. 

I also found that I didn't need a 'try out' period before I felt comfortable playing the reeds in public. In fact, within a day or so I was using them on tour with the Philharmonia, including live radio broadcasts in some fairly challenging repertoire. The quality & consistency of sound is excellent and the way to use the reeds is slightly different from the 'traditional' approach in that they need to be rotated on a daily basis in order to avoid them becoming tired. But this works fine because of the consistency between the reeds - you really can't tell one from another. All in all the Légère product is an huge asset to the clarinettist's reed armoury. I've had a very positive reaction from my colleagues in the clarinet section as well as some of the double reed players in the orchestra too - "when are they going to make one for us" they ask!