Carl Almenräder

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Carl Almenräder (3 October 1786 in Ronsdorf (Wuppertal) – 14 September 1846 in Biebrich) was a German performer, teacher and composer.

The design of the modern bassoon owes a great deal to Almenräder, who, assisted by the German acoustics researcher Gottfried Weber developed the 17-key bassoon whose range spanned four octaves. Almenräder's improvements to the bassoon began with an 1823 treatise in which he described ways of improving intonation, response, and technical ease of playing by means of augmenting and rearranging the keywork; subsequent articles further developed his ideas. Working at the Schott factory gave him the means to construct and test instruments according to these new designs, the results of which were published in Caecilia, Schott's house journal; Almenräder continued publishing and building instruments until his death in 1843, and Ludwig van Beethoven himself requested one of the newly-made instruments after hearing of the papers. Almenräder left Schott to start his own factory along with partner J.A. Heckel in 1831.