The saxotromba is a valved brass instrument invented by the Belgian instrument-maker Adolphe Sax around 1844.. But for another opinion see: It was designed for the mounted bands of the French military, probably as a substitute for the French horn. The saxotrombas comprised a family of half-tube instruments of different pitches. By about 1867 the saxotromba was no longer being used by the French military,New Grove (2000), "Saxotromba". but specimens of various sizes continued to be manufactured until the early decades of the twentieth century, during which time the instrument made sporadic appearances in the opera house, both in the pit and on stage.Carter (1999), p. 154. The instrument is often confused with the closely related saxhorn.
The technical specifications of the saxotromba and the original constitution of its family are not known with any certainty. Initially, the instrument had the same vertically oriented design as its close relation the saxhorn (i.e. with the bell pointing upwards), but later models of both families were designed with bells that faced forwards (pavillon tournant).Clifford Bevan in The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments, p. 154. According to Haine (1980), p. 71, Sax first altered the vertical bell of the saxotromba in 1859. Pavillons tournants were characteristic of several of the new instruments Sax invented in the 1840s for the French military. According to Carse (2002), p. 310, Sax's original saxhorns were designed with pavillons tournants, the vertical bell being the innovation. Whichever type of bell came first, the pavillon tournant was undoubtedly inspired by the artist Jacques-Louis David's investigations into the brass instruments of ancient Rome, such as the cornu and buccina - see Bevan (1990). The mouthpiece for a saxotromba was cup-shaped, and its bore was conical, probably with dimensions intermediate between the cylindrical bore of the natural trumpet and the conical bore of the natural horn; the taper was slower than that of the saxhorns and cornets.
The name of the instrument combines Sax's surname with the Italian word for "trumpet" (tromba).The English plural of saxotromba is saxotrombas, though saxotrombe (the Italian plural) is sometimes found in English as well. The term saxtrumpet refers to a modern instrument that is quite different from the saxotromba: viz. a valve trumpet designed to resemble a saxophone. In Germany the instrument is known by the name Saxtromba; in France the term saxotromba is generally applied to another close relative, the Wagner tuba.
History The saxotromba was invented by Adolphe Sax at his workshop on the Rue Saint-Georges in Paris in the early 1840s.Haine (1980), p. 57. Sax set up his first workshop at No. 10 Rue Neuve Saint-Georges in July 1843. On 13 October 1845,Haine (1980), pp. 196-197. Sax applied for a patent "for a family of cylinder instruments called saxotrombas, intermediate between the saxhorn and the cylinder trumpet." The cylinders referred to in the patent application were piston valves which allowed the player to lower the pitch of the instrument's natural or open harmonics by one or more semitones. In 1843 Sax had patented his own version of the Berlin piston valve (i.e. the Berliner Pumpenventil, which had been invented independently by Heinrich Stölzel in 1827 and Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht in 1833). These were independent valves, which were not designed to be used in combination with one another, though the intonational problems that arose when they were so used could often be corrected by the player's technique.This practice is known as lipping. By slightly opening or closing the aperture of the lips, the player can alter the pitch of the note being played. This was especially true in the case of the higher-pitched half-tube instruments, which were usually provided with just three valves, allowing the player to lower the pitch of any open note by one, two or three semitones when the valves were used one at a time, or by four, five or six semitones when the valves were used in combination. Before the invention of compensating valves (which could be used in combination without producing faulty intonation), lower-pitched instruments generally required extra valves in order to lower the pitch of an open note by more than three semitones.
On 22 November 1845 Sax was granted French Patent 2306 for a "Musical instrument, called the saxotromba, whose principles of construction may by means of slight modifications, be applied to saxhorns, cornets, trumpets, and trombones".Brevet d'invention 2306. Sax's address is given as "Chez Perpigna à Paris, rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, no. 10," but Sax had already set up his atelier on the Rue Saint-Georges. See Haine (1980), pp. 196-197. The saxotromba was also included in another of Sax's patents, Brevet d'invention 8351 of 5 May 1849. This patent was amended on 20 August 1849 and again on 23 April 1852. In these patents, Sax defined the saxotrombas in three different ways.Haine (1980), pp. 196-197; Bevan (1990), p. 135; Carter (1999), p. 133. Sax moved his atelier to 50 Rue Saint-Georges in the summer of 1849. However, the constitution of the saxotromba family was never fixed, as Sax continued to introduce new sizes of instrument in the final two decades of his life, modifying the design of the instrument as he did so. Some of his latest models had as many as six independent valves, thus obviating the need to use them in combination.In his Treatise on Instrumentation, Hector Berlioz implies that when a fourth valve was added to a saxhorn or saxotromba, it could also be used to lower the chromatic compass of the instrument; however, it is doubtful whether the intonation of the low notes possible by using this valve in combination with one or more of the smaller valves could have been corrected by the player's technique.
There is little agreement as to the actual number of saxotromba models that were ever made, this number varying from source to source from as few as three to as many as nine. The oldest surviving specimen of saxotromba dates from 1849, a three-valved instrument now in the Basel Historical Museum, while the youngest surviving example is a six-valved instrument from 1864 now in the Musée de la Musique in Paris. After Sax's death, his son Adolphe Edouard continued to manufacture saxotrombas into the twentieth century; an undated model at the Museum of Musical Instruments, Theatre and Cinematography in Saint Petersburg is thought to have been manufactured sometime between 1895 and 1907.
Throughout this period the saxotromba made occasional appearances in the opera houses of France, especially in the onstage banda at the Paris Opéra, of which Sax was musical director from 1847 until 1892.Carter (1999), pp. 134 and 154. It did make at least one notable operatic appearance in the onstage banda of Camille Saint-Saëns' Henry VIII (1883), which includes parts for two tenor saxotrombas in E.See Carter (1999), p. 152. The saxotromba was also at this time a regular member of many brass bands throughout Europe, though the instrument disappeared from the inventories of the French military in 1867.The New Grove, "Saxotromba".
Sources
One of the earliest descriptions of the saxotromba occurs in Jean-Georges Kastner's Manuel général de musique militaire (1848):
The saxo-tromba is a new instrument invented by Ad. Sax. This instrument is made of brass; it is equipped with a system of piston valves and has a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The timbre of the saxo-tromba resembles somewhat that of both the saxhorn and the trumpet; but it is less sombre than the former and less strident than the latter.Kastner (1848), p. 380. Kastner also states that the French army has adopted the tenor saxotromba in E, and adds in a footnote that Ad. Sax has created an entire family of saxotrombas. According to Stewart Carter (1998), Kastner first described the saxotromba in his Supplément au traité général d'instrumentation, which was published in 1844, one year before Sax applied for his patent.
In 1855, in a revised version of his Treatise on Instrumentation, the French composer Hector Berlioz described several of Sax's newly invented instruments, including the saxotrombas:
These are brass instruments with mouth-piece, and with three, four, or five cylinders, like the [saxhorns]. Their tube, being more contracted, gives to the sound which it produces, a character more shrill, partaking at once of the quality of tone of the trumpet and of that of the bugle. The number of the members of the family of saxotrombas equals that of sax-horns. They are disposed in the same order, from high to low, and possess the same compass.Berlioz (1856), translated by Mary Cowden Clarke. This description was repeated almost verbatim in an article by Berlioz in the Musical Times and Singing Class Circular entitled "New Instruments", which was published on 1 October 1860. In his English translation of Richard Strauss's revision of Berlioz's Treatise (1948), Theodore Front writes, "These are brass instruments with cup-formed mouthpieces...." A recent translator of the Treatise, Hugh Macdonald, doubts that Sax ever produced as many models of saxotromba as he did of saxhorns - Berlioz (2002), p. 304–305. In his translation, Macdonald, like Front, describes the saxotromba's mouthpiece as "a cup mouthpiece". See
In 1910 W. L. Hubbard defined the term saxotromba — without any suggestion that the instrument was obsolete at the time of writing — in the following words:
A valve instrument of the trumpet family having a narrow tube and the quality of whose tone is less delicate than that of the horn and more refined than that of the saxhorn. It is found in seven sizes: sopranino; soprano; alto; tenor; bass; low bass, and contrabass.Hubbard (1910), "Saxotromba".
According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the saxotrombas were "pitched in B and E, with an additional member in F, and they were designed to replace French horns in military bands".Sadie (2000), "Saxotromba".
The saxotromba family Writing in his Treatise on Instrumentation in 1855, Berlioz stated unequivocally that the number of saxotrombas was equal to the number of saxhorns, which he set at nine. Sax's patent application for the saxhorns (1845), however, only included five instruments, the other members being added in the 1850s.A photograph in Wally Horwood's biography of Adolphe Sax depicts four different sizes of saxotromba. See Horwood (1922). The original family comprised a soprano in 3' E,The pitches of brass instruments are sometimes given in terms of the length of an open pipe on the organ that produces the same note as the brass instrument's fundamental tone (or first harmonic), even if that fundamental cannot actually be played. Feet (and inches) are used for this purpose, even in countries that generally use the metric system. In this system C2, the note two octaves below Middle C, is defined as 8' C. The actual length of an 8' pipe will vary from place to place, and from time to time, depending on the prevailing standard of pitch. It is, incidentally, conventional practice, when citing organ-pipe pitches, to use whole numbers only: fractional parts are simply disregarded. an alto in 4' B, a tenor in 7' E, a baritone in 9' B, and a bass in 9' B.Carse (2002), p.310 The latter two instruments were of the same size, pitch and compass, differing only in bore.The nomenclature of the saxhorn family varied not only from country to country but also over time; this is still the cause of much confusion. Identification of saxotrombas is beset by a similar problem.