The Légende (2019) is the Tradition's dressed-up sibling. Same cylindrical-bore concept, plus GreenLine inserts in the tone holes for perfect seal and crack resistance and rose-gold keywork options. Nicolas Baldeyrou was heavily involved in development. Martin Fröst commissioned a boxwood Légende for his Vivaldi recording — so if you're wondering whether serious players actually use this thing, there's your answer.

Just to underline how good the Greenline inserts are, they aren't just about durability against cracks through toneholes, they create a more consistent seal than woodgrain-on-pad contact, which tightens up the response. You can hear it in the articulation scores in the dashboard: this thing speaks fast and even across registers.

The dashboard data also shows a tighter scale than the Tradition, with better register-to-register consistency. Tonally it runs brighter — still in the cylindrical-bore family sound, but with more presence. There are only a couple of notes to watch out for (throat G# and high C, we're looking at you). Otherwise the intonation is dialed.

If the Tradition was Buffet saying "let's try something different," the Légende was them saying "okay, let's make the different thing beautiful." Whether the cosmetic upgrades justify the price jump over the Tradition depends on how much you care about rose gold.

Resistance: 8/10, Heavy

Playing the Légende, I feel an instrument that pushes back quite a bit more than average, which results in a sound that has a tight core which will carry through even the lushest orchestral passages.

In general, more resistance in a clarinet design usually keeps the louder dynamic ranges from spreading; the clarinet "holds its core" and focus, but will provide a smaller dynamic range (on both ends, loud and soft) and smaller color palette. A less resistant clarinet typically provides a much wider tonal palette to choose from, but will require more control from the player to control pitch and sound consistency.

When listening for how a clarinet responds to added air pressure and embouchure control, listen to the Weber example (wide dynamic range and color range), then the Berlioz excerpt (wide dynamic range, but narrow color range), and finally the Gershwin excerpt (narrow dynamic range and narrow color range). You will hear how these clarinets respond — for better or worse! — to my input as a clarinet player.