There is some confusion over the bass sax first being made in ophicleide form. Maybe that comes form the 1846 patent sketch itself:
http://www.classicsax.com/asi/saxinfo2.pdf
http://www.classicsax.com/asi/saxinfo2.pdf
Bass Sax Patent
- Thread starter Gandalfe
- Start date
Waiting for Groovekiller to respond ....
Venturing an opinion, I see no reason to believe that the first A. Sax horn, a C bass, wasn't in the curved ophicleide form. However, when I first wrote about th A. Sax prototypes 10+ years ago, I heard that there were about 4-6 prototypes hanging around. However, I haven't been able to FIND one, with recent reports now saying that this is the oldest surviving A. Sax instrument.
I can say that the horn that most people attribute to be an A. Sax curved C bass (this one) is ... and quoting Groovekiller, from my old website:
Venturing an opinion, I see no reason to believe that the first A. Sax horn, a C bass, wasn't in the curved ophicleide form. However, when I first wrote about th A. Sax prototypes 10+ years ago, I heard that there were about 4-6 prototypes hanging around. However, I haven't been able to FIND one, with recent reports now saying that this is the oldest surviving A. Sax instrument.
I can say that the horn that most people attribute to be an A. Sax curved C bass (this one) is ... and quoting Groovekiller, from my old website:
... the website I glommed the pic from did identify the horn as a Pleisson, with a manufacture year of 1900 and listed that it was for sale. Unfortunately, Gunter Dullat hasn't returned my e-mails (probably because I don't write in German) and the gentleman that was selling the Pelisson has passed away (I think: I had gotten two responses from someone representing the seller saying that he was ill and then nothing else), so I can't confirm the pitch -- but if you see another website showing this pic, it's not an A. Sax instrument.
There is no doubt that the earliest "prototype," as the Curator of the Instrument Museum in Brussels calls it, is in the shape of an Ophicleide.
There is some disagreement about whether it was pitched in C or Bb. I think that it was in C, based only upon the fact that in so many of Adolphe Sax's earliest catalogs there is a listing for a bass "Saxophone in Ut" - C
However, the 1850 catalog lists only the bass in Bb, and the drawing shows a very conventional looking bass (Think 1920s Conn or Buescher) with a short bell because there was no low Bb.
There are more reasons to assume that the earliest bass saxes were ophicleide-shaped. Besides the famous descriptions by Berlioz, there was the (legally documented) lawsuit by Sax against the manufacturer of the Sarrusophone. In this suit, Sax said the design of the sarrusophone violated the copyright on the saxophone. But the Sarrusophone doesn't look like a saxophone. It looks like an ophicleide.
There is some disagreement about whether it was pitched in C or Bb. I think that it was in C, based only upon the fact that in so many of Adolphe Sax's earliest catalogs there is a listing for a bass "Saxophone in Ut" - C
However, the 1850 catalog lists only the bass in Bb, and the drawing shows a very conventional looking bass (Think 1920s Conn or Buescher) with a short bell because there was no low Bb.
There are more reasons to assume that the earliest bass saxes were ophicleide-shaped. Besides the famous descriptions by Berlioz, there was the (legally documented) lawsuit by Sax against the manufacturer of the Sarrusophone. In this suit, Sax said the design of the sarrusophone violated the copyright on the saxophone. But the Sarrusophone doesn't look like a saxophone. It looks like an ophicleide.
Last edited: