History
The invention of the alto clarinet has been attributed to Iwan Müller and to Heinrich Grenser, and to both working together. Müller was performing on an alto clarinet in F by 1809, one with sixteen keys at a time when soprano clarinets generally had no more than 10-12 keys; Müller's revolutionary thirteen-key soprano clarinet was developed soon after. The alto clarinet may have been invented independently in America; the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a bassoon-shaped alto clarinet in E♭, cataloged as an "alto clarion", attributed to an anonymous American maker circa 1820. This instrument bears a strong resemblance to the "patent clarions" (bass clarinets) made from about 1810 by George Catlin of Hartford, Connecticut and his apprentices. Later, in Europe, Adolphe Sax made notable improvements to the alto clarinet.
Albert Rice defines clarinets in G with flared bells, which were produced as early as 1740, as alto clarinets, but this use of the term is uncommon.
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