Revue belge de musicologie - Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap
LXX (2016), p. 91-105

Media - Book - History

The bass clarinets of Adolphe Sax: his influence and legacy

Albert R. Rice

(Claremont, California, U.S.A.)

Abbreviations of frequently quoted bibliographical references

Introduction

This study discusses the development and construction of Adolphe Sax's bass clarinets, notes specific design innovations, gives an overview of the eleven extant examples, discusses and cites specific musical use, and compares Sax's bass clarinets to selected contemporary instruments.

The vast majority of newly invented musical instruments during the nineteenth century were improvements to previous instruments.¹ Thus, it is erroneous to indiscriminately describe all of Adolphe Sax's instruments as inventions. This is especially true of Sax's first well-known design, his bass clarinet patented in Brussels in 1838. Two earlier and successful bass clarinets were the bassoon-shaped instruments by Johann Heinrich Gottlieb Streitwolf of Göttingen in 1828 and Catterino Catterini's bass clarinet attributed to Giancinto Riva of San Giovanni in Persiceto in 1833. Sax undoubtedly knew of bassoon-shaped bass clarinets but never used the design principles of these instruments. Rather, he adopted and developed the basic design of the 1833 straight bass clarinet devised by the first clarinettist of the Paris Opéra, Isaac François Dacosta, collaborating with the maker Louis Auguste Buffet, also known as Buffet jeune (the younger).²

Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Les huguenots celebrated an immensely successful premiere at the Paris Opéra in 1836, and was performed 1,080 times until 1914.³ It features a dramatic and important twenty-five measure bass clarinet solo in act five, no. 15; the bass clarinet is sparingly used also in a few other sections.⁴ Adolphe Sax is likely to have heard the performance of Les huguenots given in Brussels on 15 November 1837.⁵

At the 1839 Paris Exhibition, Buffet's bass clarinet was exhibited⁶ and reported in journals. Sax left Brussels and travelled to Paris to demonstrate his own bass clarinet to Dacosta and his wife.⁷ Dacosta's wife is alleged to have said to Dacosta, “My friend, I am sorry to have to tell you, but when Monsieur [Sax] plays, your instrument sounds to me like a kazoo!”⁸ Was Sax's instrument better than Buffet's? An examination of some early Buffet bass clarinets enables a comparison to Sax's patent sketch and his bass clarinets. At this time, bass clarinets were constructed in the sounding pitches of C and B♭.

Louis Auguste Buffet's (Buffet Jeune's) Bass Clarinet

Buffet jeune's earliest extant bass clarinet (ca. 1834, Paris, Musée de la musique, F.P. cm,⁹ E.0644, fig. 1) is in the nominal pitch of B♭, with thirteen keys, two plateau keys for L3 and R1, and a straight wooden bell. Two pillars and a metal platform on the back suggest that a second register key was subsequently added along with a key on the missing brass crook, clearly adopting Sax's later use of two register keys. Buffet's bass clarinet was the earliest modern instrument played in important music of the time by highly skilled performers. It is likely the type of bass clarinet that Meyerbeer had in mind when he wrote the solo in Les huguenots. Another early straight Buffet C bass clarinet (ca. 1837, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University collection of historic instruments, GB.E.u, 4948, fig. 2) has fourteen keys with two plateau keys for L3 and R1.¹⁰ It is virtually identical to the Paris example, but has an additional cross f/c key for the second finger of the left hand, a long f/c key for the first finger of the right hand, two rollers on the adjacent key touches for each little finger and one roller each for the touches of the E♭/B♭ and B♭/F keys. Another Buffet C bass clarinet (ca. 1845, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, Marlowe A. Sigal collection, US.NC.sigal, fig. 3)¹¹ is similar to the Edinburgh instrument with some of the key touches placed at a slight angle and a nicely crafted saddle mounting for the A key instead of a pillar mounting. The Buffet bass clarinets were carefully made and have bores from about 17.1 to 17.5 mm.

Figure 1. Bass clarinet, Louis-Auguste Buffet, Paris (ca. 1834), Musée de la musique, Paris, E.0644).		Figure 2. Bass clarinet, Louis-Auguste Buffet, Paris (ca. 1837), © Edinburgh University collection of musical instruments, 4948. Photographer, Raymond Parks.		Figure 3. Bass clarinet, Louis-Auguste Buffet, Paris (ca. 1845), Newton Centre, Massachusetts, Marlowe A. Sigal collection, 2013.01.

Born and raised in Brussels, Sax learnt instrument making from his father, Charles Sax, a very skilled and successful woodwind and brass maker. From 1835 to 1842, Adolphe held the responsible position of contremaître (foreman) in his father’s factory which by that time employed about 250 workers.¹²

Table 1. Table of extant bass clarinets by Adolphe Sax

No. of Keys	Inscription	Date	Pitch	Bell Shape	Body Material	Location
13 keys, 7 plateau	*/ SAX / A / BRUXELLES / *	ca. 1838	C	Straight	Maple	US.AA.s, 637
14 keys, 7 plateau	* / SAX / A / BRUXELLES / *	ca. 1840	B♭	Straight	African blackwood	B.B.mim, 0175
14 keys, 7 plateau	* / SAX / A / BRUXELLES / *	ca. 1840	B♭	Straight	Boxwood	B.B.mim, 2601
14 keys, 7 plateau	AIS	ca. 1843	C	Straight	Maple	F.P.cm, E.759
14 keys, 7 plateau	AS (monogram) /AD. SAX & CIE / PARIS	ca. 1843	C	Straight	Maple	F.P.cm, E.1223
14 keys, 7 plateau	AS (monogram) /AD. SAX & CIE / PARIS	ca. 1845	B♭	Straight	Maple	NL.DH.gm, Ea 606-1933
14 keys, 7 plateau	Unstamped (contemporary copy)	ca. 1845	C	Straight	Maple	F.P.cm, E.2197
14 keys, 7 plateau	AS (monogram) /AD. SAX & CIE / PARIS	ca. 1855	B♭	Straight	Stained Maple	I.B.mm, 1849
14 keys, 7 plateau	Unstamped (contemporary copy)	ca. 1855	C	Straight	Ebony	J.H.mmi, 164
14 keys, 7 plateau	Unstamped	ca. 1867	B♭	Curved	Brass	F.P.cm, E.713
14 keys, 7 plateau	AS (monogram) / AD. SAX et cie / PARIS	ca. 1870	B♭	Curved	African blackwood	US.NC.sigal

Adolphe Sax’s bass clarinet and patent sketch

Between about 1835 and 1837, Sax produced his first bass clarinet¹³ and received a Belgian patent (no. 1051) for its design in 1838. The patent sketch (fig. 4) shows a mouthpiece on a large curved crook, two-piece body, thirteen keys, seven large plateau keys for the first three fingers of the left and right hands and the left thumb, and a downward-pointing metal bell.¹⁴ A second register key covers a very small tone hole in a key seat placed high on the front side of the brass crook. This key was a genuine innovation and brilliant idea by Sax since with its use the response and equality of tone in the upper register were greatly improved. The ends of several touches are slightly curved or sloped; Sax did not approve of rollers. There is a crescent-shaped brass mount, first used on soprano clarinets by Georges Bachmann in Brussels, to securely hold the long levers of the F♯/C♯ and E/B keys. A second, upward-pointing, curved brass bell is pictured with four holes for the notes E♭, D, D♭ and C. However, none of his extant bass clarinets, or those attributed to him have survived with a curved bell fitted with four keys, and it is likely that Sax was unable to construct a key extension that would allow these notes to be produced. By the 1840s, Sax’s bass clarinets were carefully and expertly designed, and superior in tone quality and projection to Buffet jeune’s instruments.

	Figure 4. Adolphe Sax, bass clarinet, from “Description de la nouvelle clarinette-basse, contre-basse, et bourdon,” no. 1051 (21 June 1838), Belgian patent sketch.		Figure 5. Bell of bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Brussels (ca. 1840), Musical instruments museum, Brussels, 2601.

As reported by Berlioz in June 1842, Sax constructed a concave acoustic reflector or a metal plaque attached under the bell to direct and augment the sound.¹⁵ No such reflectors have survived, although there is evidence of an axel for attaching a reflector on the inside of an Adolphe Sax bass clarinet bell (Musée des instruments de musique, Brussels, B.B. mim, no. 2601, fig. 5). Thus, it probably did not achieve the desired results.¹⁶

Of the eleven surviving Sax bass clarinets, three were made in Brussels and eight in Paris. The Brussels bass clarinets are all presumed to have been produced under Sax’s supervision by workmen in Charles Sax’s factory. They are made of boxwood, maple, African black wood, ebony or brass; all, except the first, have fourteen keys (including an E♭/B♭ key, to provide an option in fingering, and a second register key mounted on the brass crook) and seven plateau keys. Only two Sax bass clarinets were made with a curved or upturned bell, although this design ultimately became the most popular and successful model up to the present. Seven are stamped with Adolphe Sax’s name; one has only his initials; and three, of which two were previously in Sax’s personal collection, are unstamped. One instrument in the Musée de la musique in Paris appears to be experimental, displaying variations in the placement of several keys (F.P. cm, E.2197). Ignace de Keyser suggests that the two unstamped bass clarinets are contemporary copies (F.P. cm, E.2197, and one in the Hamamatsu museum of musical instruments, J.H.mmi, 164).¹⁷

The first three Sax bass clarinets are stamped “SAX / A BRUXELLES”. The earliest is a C bass clarinet (ca. 1838, Ann Arbor, Stearns collection at the University of Michigan (US.AA.s, 637, fig. 6). It has the register keys as in the patent – that is, one on the body and the second on the front side of the brass crook – and a bore of 22.9 mm. Its thirteen keys are: register key 1, register key 2, A, G♯, f/c, E♭/B♭, C♯/G♯, B/F♯, B♭/F, A♭/E♭, F/C, F♯/C♯ and E/B.¹⁸ The other two B♭ bass clarinets (ca. 1840, Brussels, B.B. mim, nos. 0175, 2601, figs. 7, 8) have the key heads of both register keys mounted on the back side of their crooks and an additional E♭/B♭ key for the first finger of the right hand.¹⁹ Compared to Buffet-Crampon’s bass clarinets, Sax’s had a larger bore, and consequently a much larger brass crook, which contributed to their greater volume of sound.

Figure 6. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Brussels (ca. 1838), Stearns collection, University of Michigan, 637. Stearns collection of musical instruments, University of Michigan. Photo courtesy, Christopher Dempsey, reproduced with permission.	Figure 7. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Brussels (ca. 1840), Musical instruments museum, Brussels, 0175. Reproduced with permission.	Figure 8. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Brussels (ca. 1840), Musical instruments museum, Brussels, 2601. Reproduced with permission.

By 1841, Sax had been praised in the Parisian musical press and encouraged by Berlioz, Kastner and others to move to Paris where he would have greater opportunities. Finally, in October 1842, Sax established his famous musical instrument factory in Paris.²⁰ Sax’s bass clarinet was introduced to Paris in Donizetti’s opera, Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal, which was premiered at the Opéra on 13 November 1843. The two bass clarinet parts, marked “Bassettes en si♭”, were written in the tenor clef,²¹ which corresponded to an earlier Italian tradition indicating a transposed part to be played on the B♭ soprano clarinet. Clarinettists were trained to transpose such parts at sight.²² In the Pas de deux section, in act two, the bass clarinets play with two soprano clarinets, oboes, bassoons, horns, strings, harp, and percussion. After a short fermata, the B♭ clarinets and B♭ bass clarinets are skilfully featured alone, with the bass clarinets acting an accompaniment to the soprano clarinets in two short sections. The first bass clarinet is limited to a compass of e to a², the second from e to e².²³

A conspiracy against Sax’s bass clarinet at the Opéra was reported in La France musicale one day before the performance.²⁴ Some of the musicians had convinced the conductor, François Habeneck, that the music was too difficult for Sax’s instrument, so Habeneck decreed that one Buffet bass clarinet and one Sax bass clarinet be used for the performance.²⁵

The conspiracy was instigated by relatives and friends of Parisian makers who were against Sax because his competitors feared he would achive a monopoly by supplying instruments to bands in France.

Figure 9. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1843), Musée de la musique, Paris. E.1223, © Jean-Claude Billing		Figure 10. Bass clarinet, Buffet-Crampon (ca. 1845), © Edinburgh University collection of musical instruments, 4734. Photographer, Raymond Parks.

At the beginning of December 1843, two Sax bass clarinets, played by Sax and Édouard Duprez, were successfully used in a performance of Berlioz’ Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale. This work is scored for a military band and an optional chorus. The compass of both B♭ bass clarinet parts is two octaves and a major sixth, from e to a². In one section of the Marche funèbre movement, Berlioz pairs two unison bass clarinets with two bassoons, contrabassoon, two trombones and two ophicleides in a slow but technically demanding part. Later in the same movement, the bass clarinets are given the melody doubled by two alto and two tenor trombones. The bass clarinet parts feature several short passages that often double the bassoons.²⁶

Figure 11. Adolphe Sax, Paris, 1850 Prospectus, W. Horwood, Adolphe Sax 1814-1894. His life and legacy (Baldock, 1983), p. 128.

Duprez’s bass clarinet (F.P.com, E.1223, fig. 9) illustrates Sax’s wide plateau keys to accommodate large fingers and left thumb, large key heads covering large tone holes, a register key located on the front of the brass crook that is opened by a ring-shaped mechanism and the massive brass crook. A large mouthpiece with a socket requires a wide reed and large brass ligature. The end of the mouthpiece has a nickel-silver ring and when placed on the crook’s tenon, lays against a wide, flat surface at the front of the crook, providing a firm foundation so that it will not move when played. Sax’s design features improved resonance of sound, evenness of tone, security in blowing, security in fingering and accuracy of intonation.

During the 1840s and 1850s, Buffet jeune modified his straight bass clarinets (GB.E.u, 4734, fig. 10), enlarging the bore to 22.3 mm, and adding plateau keys, two spectacle or ring keys for the right hand and a large upright pointing brass bell as seen on this example in Edinburgh.

	Figure 12. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1850), Museo internazionale e biblioteca, Bologna, 1849. Reproduced with permission.
		Figure 13. Bass clarinet (ophicleide-shaped), Frédéric Widemann, Paris (1847), Museum Bochum, SGK 47.

Sax’s bass clarinets found use in orchestras and bands in Brussels and Paris during the 1840s and 1850s. For example, two B♭ bass clarinets are required in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust (composed in 1846, published in 1854)²⁷ and Te Deum (composed 1848-1849, first performed in 1855)²⁸ and a C bass clarinet in Liszt’s Mazeppa, symphonic poem after Victor Hugo (written from 1851-1854, published in 1856).²⁹

 

Figure 14. “Clarinette basse (système Widmann) and Clarinette à bec recourbé,” Charles Soullier, Nouveau dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1855), p. 65.

Sax still advertised a straight model (fig. 11) with large plateau keys in an 1850 prospectus.³⁰ The Sax bass clarinet in Bologna (ca. 1850, Museo internazionale e biblioteca, Bologna, I.B.af, 1849, fig. 12) has keys, crook, and bell of nickel-silver. This instrument continued to be played during the 1850s and 1860s when the performing pitch rose from 441 to 448 Hz at the Paris Opéra, and from 443 to 456 Hz in Italy.³¹ It was extensively re-tuned, possibly at the Sax factory, and includes additional key work to raise the pitch. There is a brass insert in the thumb hole, a wood insert in the A key tone hole, brass inserts with wood putty in the first, second and third tone holes of the left hand, a brass insert with wood putty in the first tone hole of the right hand, and wood inserts with wood putty in the second hole of the right hand and F/C tone holes. A later addition is a tuning key that opens when the plateau keys for R2 or R3 are closed. It is preserved with a rosewood socket mouthpiece with Sax’s stamp and a brass ring at its end.³²

Contemporary bass clarinet designs

A little known contemporary bass clarinet design briefly competed with Sax’s from about 1847 to the 1880s. This was an ophicleide-shaped bass clarinet with a U-shaped brass section at the lower end connecting a short brass crook and mouthpiece to an upward-pointing bell. An example is the rosewood bass clarinet (Museum Bochum, SGK 47, D.BOCH.m, fig. 13) by the Parisian maker Frédéric Widemann.³³ It is stamped “1847”, has a lowest note of E, a very wide bore of about 30 mm, and thirteen keys and seven plateau keys expertly arranged on the body.³⁴ Although only five examples are extant, ophicleide-shape bass clarinets in B♭ were popular enough to be mentioned by Charles Soullier in his 1855 Nouveau dictionnaire de musique as the “Système Widmann” along with engravings of the instrument next to the “(basse) clarinette à bec recourbé” or “Système Sax” (fig. 14).³⁵ Widemann’s small and compact ophicleide-shaped bass clarinets were convenient for players in marching or outdoor wind bands. Made of rosewood, they had brass ferrules and keys and an ingenious key linkage system.³⁶

Buffet-Crampon’s earliest straight bass clarinet of the early 1850s featured an original design with unusual placements of its twelve keys (US.AA.s, 638, fig. 15), a long brass crook with two linkages for each register key and the A and G♯ keys mounted high on the left side of the body (fig. 16).³⁷ It has a large upward-pointing bell and plateau keys that are different from those by Sax. By the 1860s, the Buffet-Crampon & Cie bass clarinet had evolved into a standard model (fig. 17) with large plateau keys, fourteen keys with two register keys, an A-B trill key, and a mouthpiece with a tenon, an example of which is in Edinburgh (GB.E.u, 4878, fig. 17).³⁸ The French bass clarinet subsequently changed very little until the Boehm-system became popular in the early twentieth century.

Figure 15. Bass clarinet, Buffet-Crampon, Paris (ca. 1855), Stearns collection, University of Michigan, 638. Stearns collection of musical instruments, University of Michigan. Photo courtesy, Christopher Dempsey, reproduced with permission.	Figure 16. Upper section of bass clarinet, Buffet-Crampon, Paris (ca. 1855), Stearns collection, University of Michigan, 638. Photo, Albert Rice, reproduced with permission.	Figure 17. Bass clarinet, Buffet-Crampon & Cie (1860), © Edinburgh University collection of musical instruments, 4878. Photographer, Raymond Parks.

In Sax’s 1867 prospectus, he still offered a straight bass clarinet next to a contralto in E♭, but the plateau keys on the bass look a bit smaller (fig. 18).³⁹ An unsigned Sax brass bass clarinet in Paris (ca. 1867, F.P. cm, E.713, fig. 19) with an upward-pointing bell was purchased at the auction of Sax’s instrument collection in 1877.⁴⁰ It has a straight body recourbée, or with a curved bell, mentioned by Kastner as early as 1848.⁴¹ Photos taken by Jean Jeltsch of this bass clarinet show sloppy soldering around the tone holes and the bottom of the U-joint, suggesting that this instrument was a model or prototype and never put into production.

Figure 18. Adolphe Sax, Paris, 1867 prospectus, W. Horwood, Adolphe Sax 1814-1894. His life and legacy (Baldock, 1983), p. 78.

Figure 19. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1867), Musée de la musique, Paris, E.713, © Thierry Ollivier.

A Sax bass clarinet in the private collection of Marlowe A. Sigal (ca. 1870, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, US.NC.sigal) is made of African black wood (fig. 20), with fourteen German-silver keys, seven plateau keys, an upright German-silver bell and decorated key heads with a wave or swirl design (fig. 21). It is engraved on the side of the curved bell: “Clarinette basse en si♭, Adolphe Sax à Paris, Facteur de la Maison militaire de l’Empereur” (“bass clarinet in B♭, Adolphe Sax in Paris, Maker to the Imperial Army”, fig. 22).⁴² A similar engraving is found on the majority of Sax’s saxophone and brass instrument bells, but this bass clarinet does not have a serial number. It does, however, display neck, key and bell designs similar to those of bass clarinets built by Buffet-Crampon during the 1860s and 1870s. Géry Dumoulin, curator at the Brussels Musical instruments museum, has suggested that Sax outsourced the construction of flutes, clarinets, oboes, and bassoons to other Parisian makers,⁴³ and it seems very possible that this bass clarinet was made for Sax by Buffet-Crampon or another French maker.

		Figure 21. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1870), close-up of keyhead, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, Marlowe A. Sigal collection, 2006.18.
Figure 20. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1870), Newton Centre, Massachusetts, Marlowe A. Sigal collection, 2006.18.		Figure 22. Bass clarinet, Adolphe Sax, Paris (ca. 1870), close-up of bell inscription, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, Marlowe A. Sigal collection, 2006.18.

The question arises: Why are there so few extant Sax bass clarinets? Their scarcity is probably due to the high price of 200 francs documented in a price list of around 1845. Bass clarinets were thus more expensive than any of his other instruments, except the bass saxophone which sold for 300 francs. In addition, Sax mainly devoted himself to building and promoting saxophones and three distinct types of brass instruments: saxhorns, saxotrombas and saxtubas, as well as other types of brass instruments such as, cornets, trumpets, horns, trombones, etc. Moreover, he was also active as director and sometimes conductor of the Paris Opéra banda from 1847 to 1892, which left little time to promote his woodwind instruments.⁴⁴ Sax was also involved in several court proceedings and displayed instruments at many international exhibitions. All of these activities must have limited the time he could spend producing and selling woodwinds.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that Adolphe Sax’s bass clarinets were very influential. The high quality of his instruments inspired a number of important composers to write for the bass clarinet, including Berlioz, Donizetti, Meyerbeer, Verdi, Liszt and Saint-Saëns. Sax’s bass clarinets were copied by some makers but exerted their greatest influence through the dissemination of his designs, namely plateau keys for all finger holes and the left thumb, the second register key, the wide bore and the large mouthpiece. These elements were adopted by the important Parisian makers L.A. Buffet and Buffet-Crampon for their widely distributed and popular instruments. By the 1870s, the modern bass clarinet had evolved and found use throughout the world.

___________________________

¹ For descriptions of these instruments, see A.R. Rice, From the clarinet d'amour to the contra bass: a history of large size clarinets, 1740-1860 (New York, 2009), p. 268-273, 275-277; A.R. Rice, “The bass clarinets of Adolphe Sax”, Proceedings of the clarinet and woodwind colloquium 2007: celebrating the collection of Sir Nicholas Shackleton, Papers resented at the meeting organized by the Edinburgh university collection of historic musical instruments Edinburgh, 22-24 June 2007, ed. A. Myers et al. (Edinburgh, 2012), p. 87-89; A.R. Rice, “Towards a new history of the bass clarinet”, Geschichte, Bauweise und Repertoire der Klarinetteninstrumente. 29. Musikinstrumentenbau-Symposium Michaelstein, 24. bis 26. Oktober 2008, ed. B.E.H. Schmuhl and M. Lustig (Augsburg, 2014), p. 190-194.

² F.-J. Fétis, “Exposition des produits de l'industrie. Instrumens a vent”, Revue musicale, 8 (1 June 1834), p. 171-172.

³ A. Loewenberg, Annals of opera, 1597-1940, compiled from the original sources, 3rd ed. rev. and corrected (New Jersey, 1978), p. 777.

⁴ Rice, From the clarinet d'amour to the contra bass, p. 346-353.

⁵ Loewenberg, Annals of opera, 1597-1940, p. 778.

⁶ Rapport du Jury Central. Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française (Paris, 1839), 365.

⁷ G. Kastner, Manuel général de musique militaire à l'usage des armées françaises (Paris, 1848; reprint ed., Geneva, 1973), p. 232.

⁸ “Mon ami, je suis fȃchée de te le dire, mais depuis que Monsieur a joué, ton instrument me fait l'effet d'un mirliton!” Reported in Le patriote belge (23 September 1843) according to H.Radiguer, “L'Orphéon, la vie et l'œuvre d'Adolphe Sax”, Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire, deuxième partie, Technique – Esthétique – Pédagogie, (Paris, 1931), p. 3733.

⁹ See the “Collection Sigla” in The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 2nd ed., edited, L. Libin (New York, 2014), 5 vols., lix-lxxxiii.

¹⁰ H.Fricke, Historic musical instruments in the Edinburgh university collection. Catalogue of the Sir Nicholas Shackleton collection (Edinburgh, 2007), p. 728.

¹¹ A.R.Rice, Four centuries of musical instruments: the Marlowe A. Sigal Collection (Atglen, 2015), p. 266.

¹² W. Waterhouse, The new Langwill index: a dictionary of musical wind-instrument makers and inventors (London, 1993), p. 348.

¹³ F.-J.Fétis, “Sax, Antoine-Joseph,” Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1883-1884), vol. 7, p. 414.

¹⁴ A. Sax, “Description de la nouvelle clarinette-basse, contre-basse, et bourdon”, no. 1051 (21 June 1838), Belgian patent.

¹⁵ H. Berlioz, “Instrumens de musique. M. Ad. Sax”, Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (12 June 1842), p. 3.

¹⁶ A reflector is illustrated in a satirical engraving of Adolphe Sax playing his bass clarinet by the Belgian artist Louis Ghémar, Paris, ca 1844, see Rice, “The bass clarinets of Adolphe Sax”, p. 94; Dumoulin, SAX200, p. 116.

¹⁷ I. De Keyser, “Adolphe Sax und die Bassklarinette”, Bassklarinetten-Konferenz in Leipzig 2014 "Bassklarinettenszene D”, Grassi-Museum, Museum für Musikinstrumente der Universität Leipzig, 14 February 2014.

¹⁸ J.M. Borders, European and American wind and percussion instruments. Catalogue of the Stearns collection of musical instruments, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1988), p. 44.

¹⁹ Haine and De Keyser, Catalogue des instruments Sax, p. 72-77.

²⁰ “Nouvelles”, Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 9/44 (1842), p. 431.

²¹ The score and parts were published by Bureau Central de Musique in Paris, plate no. 503 with tenor clef notation, and by the same publisher, plate no. 501 with treble clef notation. Philip Gossett believes that the former edition is closest to the autograph manuscript; G. Donizetti, Dom Sébastien: Opéra in five acts, facsimile ed. of the score (plate no. 503), intro., P. Gossett (New York, 1980), [6].

²² A.R. Rice, The clarinet in the Classical period (New York, 2003), p. 98-106.

²³ G. Donizetti, Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal, ed. M.A. Smart (Milano, 2003), vol. 1, p. 237-262; Rice, From the clarinet d'amour to the contra bass, p. 365.

²⁴ ES [M.P.P. Escudier], “Conspiration de l'orchestre de l'Opéra”, La France musicale, 16/46 (1843), p. 369.

²⁵ “Nouvelles”, Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, 10/46 (1843), p. 388; Radiguer, “L'Orphéon, la vie et l'œuvre d'Adolphe Sax”, p. 3735.

²⁶ H. Berlioz, Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, ed. H. Macdonald, New edition of the complete works of Hector Berlioz, vol. 19 (Kassel, 1967), p. 22-23, 108; Rice, From the clarinet d'amour to the contra bass, p. 360-363.

²⁷ H. Berlioz, La damnation de Faust, ed. J. Rushton, New edition of the complete works of Hector Berlioz, vol. 8 (Kassel, 1979), p. 273-311, 311-325, 401-437; supplement, p. 459.

²⁸ H. Berlioz, Te Deum, ed. D. McCaldin, New edition of the complete works of Hector Berlioz, vol. 10 (Kassel, 1973), p. 89-100, 119-122.

²⁹ F. Liszt, Mazeppa, symphonic poem after V. Hugo, Franz Liszt Musikalische Werke, Abt. 1, Bd. 7, ed. Franz Liszt-Stiftung (Leipzig, 1908; reprint ed., Farnborough, 1966).

³⁰ W. Horwood, Adolphe Sax 1814-1894. His life and legacy (Baldock, 1983), p. 128.

³¹ B. Haynes, A history of performing pitch: the story of “A” (Lanham, 2002), p. 347, 353.

³² J.H. van der Meer, Strumenti musicali europei del Museo civico medievale di Bologna (Bologna, 1993), p. 68-69.

³³ William Rousselet and Denis Watel, Le Livre d'Or de la Clarinette Française: Index des facteurs et des marques illustré par les instruments de l'ancienne collection Rousselet (Paris, 2012), 183. His name is sometimes misspelled as „Widmann“ and there is a J. I. Widmann, a woodwind maker in Freiburg.

³⁴ C. Ahrens and G. Klinke, Musikinstrumentensammlung Hans und Hede Grumbt (Bochum, 1997), p. 57-58.

³⁵ C. Soullier, Nouveau dictionnaire de musique illustré: élémentaire, théorique, historique, artistique professionnel et complet (Paris, 1855), p. 65.

³⁶ Other similar ophicleide-shaped bass clarinets were made by Buffet-Crampon (Paris) and Martin frères (Paris). Eight large ophicleide-shaped bass clarinets in B♭ with an extension of their lowest note to low C were made from 1849 into the 1860s. These were constructed in wood by Joseph Uhlmann (Vienna), but were usually of brass or nickel silver; one is attributed to Giovanni Bimboni (Firenze) and others are by Franz Losschmidt (Olmütz), Josef Wenzel Lausmann (Linz), Franz Carl Kruspe (Erfurt), Anton Nechwalsky (Vienna) and Franz Walsch (Prossnitz). See Rice, From the clarinet d'amour to the contra bass, p. 314-322.

³⁷ Borders, European and American wind and percussion instruments, p. 45.

³⁸ Fricke, Historic musical instruments in the Edinburgh university collection, p. 730.

³⁹ Horwood, Adolphe Sax, p. 78.

⁴⁰ Catalogue du musée instrumental de M. Adolphe Sax (Paris, 1877), p. 4, no. 51; F. Gétreau, Aux origines du musée de la musique: les collections instrumentales du Conservatoire de Paris 1793-1993 (Paris, 1996), p. 666.

⁴¹ Kastner, Manuel général de musique militaire, p. 273, 375-376, pl. XXV1 no. 5 between 382 and 383, titled “Nouveaux instruments du système Ad. Sax”.

⁴² A.R. Rice, Four centuries of musical instruments: the Marlowe A. Sigal Collection, p. 265.

⁴³ In conversation with the author in 2014, at the SAX200 exhibition in Brussels.

⁴⁴ I. De Keyser, “Adolphe Sax and the Paris Opéra”, Brass scholarship in review: proceedings of the Historic brass society conference, Cité de la musique, Paris 1999, ed. K. Polk (Hillsdale, 2006), p. 133, 138.

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Frequently quoted bibliographical references are abbreviated as follows:

O. Comettant, Histoire d’un inventeur au dix-neuvième siècle. Adolphe Sax, ses ouvrages et ses luttes (Paris, 1860)
Comettant, Histoire d’un inventeur

S. Cottrell, The saxophone (New Haven, Connecticut, 2012)
Cottrell, The saxophone

G. Dumoulin (ed.), SAX200: Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Musical instruments museum in Brussels from 8 February 2014 to 11 January 2015 (Liège, 2014)
Dumoulin, SAX200

M. Haine, Adolphe Sax (1814-1894): sa vie, son œuvre et ses instruments de musique (Bruxelles, 1980)
Haine, Adolphe Sax
M. Haine and I. De Keyser, Catalogue des instruments Sax au Musée instrumental de Bruxelles, suivi de la liste de 400 instruments Sax conservés dans les collections publiques et privées (Bruxelles, 1980) Haine and De Keyser, Catalogue des instruments Sax Eugenia Mitroulia and Arnold Myers, “List of Adolphe Sax instruments”, Edinburgh University collection of historic musical instruments, http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/am/gdsl.html Mitroulia and Myers, “List of Adolphe Sax instruments”