Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Grenser (5 March 1764 – 12 December 1813) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

 maker.

Grenser was born in Lipprechtsroda, Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. From 1779 to 1786 he was apprenticed to his uncle, August Grenser, a Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 instrument maker, and after his apprenticeship he continued to work in August's shop, taking it over himself in 1796. Heinrich Grenser invented an early form of bass clarinet

Bass clarinet

The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...

 in 1793, and may have been the inventor of the alto clarinet

Alto clarinet

The alto clarinet is a wind instrument of the clarinet family. It is a transposing instrument pitched in the key of E, though instruments in F have been made. It is sometimes known as a tenor clarinet; this name especially is applied to the instrument in F...

, beginning production in 1808.

Grenser died in Dresden in 1813. A 1978 inventory lists 127 surviving instruments by Grenser, most of them bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s and flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, but also including basset horns, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s, oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s, fagottini

Tenoroon

The tenor bassoon or, "tenoroon," is a member of the bassoon family of double reed woodwind instruments. This group also includes the more widely known bassoon and contrabassoon, along with a smaller version of the tenor bassoon, the octave bassoon. Tenoroons are extremely rare in the United...

, and one each of bass clarinet, cor anglais

Cor anglais

The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....

, oboe d'amore

Oboe d'amore

The oboe d'amore , less commonly oboe d'amour, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the mezzo-soprano of the oboe family, between the oboe itself and the cor...

, bass horn

Serpent (instrument)

A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...

, contrabassoon

Contrabassoon

The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...

, hunting horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

, and recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

.