Saxotromba - History

History

The saxotromba was invented by Adolphe Sax at his workshop on the Rue Saint-Georges in Paris in the early 1840s. On 13 October 1845, 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 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". 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. 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.

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. 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.