Saxophone Instruments
Saxophone Instruments Fast Facts
As Homer would say, "Sax-a-ma-phone. Mmmm, saxamaphone." Although made of brass, the Saxophone is classified as a woodwind instrument because its notes are produced by means of a mouthpiece and a single reed, exactly like the clarinet. Indeed, since its fingering is also the same as the clarinet’s it is often played by the same performer without any further training. It was invented in 1846 by the Belgian instrument maker Antoine Joseph Sax (usually known s Adolphe Sax). His intention seems to have been to make an instrument that would help out the middle registers of the military band, and he clearly had in mind a whole family of instruments. It was for this reason that he used metal even for the smaller members – since a bass saxophone in wood would have been far too cumbersome.
A Brief History of the Saxophone Instrument
Saxophones were named by Adolphe Sax (1814-1894), whose invention they were, and whose father was a fine and imaginative instrument maker. Adolphe studied flute and clarinet at the Brussels Conservatoire. He began by trying to improve the clarinet, in particular in the bass. As has been mentioned, the clarinet overblows at the twelfth and requires much complicated keywork and fingering to produce a satisfactory chromatic scale; by combining the single-reed clarinet mouthpiece with a re-designed tube configuration, Sax was able to produce an instrument that over blows at the octave. This new shape led to simpler keywork, similar to that of the oboe.
The saxophone was invented in 1841, and soon Sax
was operating a successful workshop in Paris. French military bands adopted
the saxophone in preference to clarinets and bassoons, and Sax began a
series of wins at important exhibitions, culminating in 1851 at the Great
Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park. The next year,
however, he was bankrupt; his financial affairs had become hopelessly
entangled. By 1877 he had been obliged to sell his much enlarged Parisian
premises; he also sold his collection of instruments, to the Museum of
the Paris Conservatoire.
The saxophone has never become a regular member of the orchestra, and
at first only the French scored for it, among them Delibes, Saint-Saens,
d’Indy and Bizet. The first, in the 1840s, was Johann Georg Kastner, opera
composer and author of the first important French treatise on instrumentation.
In the 20th century, however, partly as a result of its adoption by military bands, the saxophone has become an instrument of primary importance in popular music, especially jazz. Such American players as Johnny Hodges, Lester Young and Charlie Parker on alto, and Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins on tenor, to name just a few, established the saxophone securely as a means of intensely personal self-expression, relying particularly on its resemblance to the sound of the human voice. It is not surprising, therefore, that 20th century composers have found the occasional appropriate use for it, especially the French, who have been influenced by jazz. Debussy wrote a rhapsody for saxophone and piano which has been orchestrated; Ravel used it in his Bolero, and in his masterful orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Picture at an Exhibition, where he assigned it the role of the troubadour singing to gain entrance to ‘The Old Castle’.
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