Sax.

Belgian family of wind instrument makers, of whom the second in line was probably the most remarkable innovator ever to enter the trade.

PHILIP BATE/WALLY HORWOOD

Sax

(1) Charles-Joseph Sax [Sax père]

(b Dinant [now in Belgium], 1 Feb 1790; d Paris, 26 April 1865). A skilled workman, he seems to have taught himself the craft of wind instrument making. In 1815 he established a factory for brass and woodwind instruments in Brussels. His products soon attracted notice; in the same year he received a court appointment and was entrusted with supplying instruments for certain Dutch Army regiments then in the course of formation. Instruments bearing his mark figured at the Paris Exposition of 1867. In addition to producing the standard instruments of the period, and a clarinet with the ‘spectacle’ b/f'' key designed by (2) Adolphe Sax, Charles-Joseph Sax devised a valveless ‘cor omnitonique’ in 1824 and patented an improved version in 1846. He also obtained Belgian protection for an improved system of ‘cylinders’ applied to the ophicleide. According to Pontécoulant (Organographie, Paris, 1861, ii, p.369) Sax’s ‘omnitonique’ idea of 1824 was patented in France in 1826 in the name of Stuckens (presumably a patent agent), and in 1834 its originality was challenged by Meifred and Deshays, thus foreshadowing the mass of litigation that was later to bedevil the life of his son.

Sax

(2) Adolphe [Antoine-Joseph] Sax

(b Dinant, 6 Nov 1814; d Paris,4 Feb 1894). Son of (1) Charles-Joseph Sax. He made his first acquaintance with musical instruments in his father’s workshop, and soon acquired exceptional skill. As a student at the Brussels Conservatory (flute and clarinet), he added the player’s experience to that of the instrument maker. His inventive talent was tremendous; his business acumen certainly less so. A great deal has been written about him, both during his lifetime and since, much of it unreliable and contradictory, for he attracted both violent partisans and bitter enemies. It seems that he was of a somewhat quarrelsome, certainly litigious temperament, and through excessive self-esteem may have brought on himself some of the troubles that marked his later years. Nevertheless, he had much to be proud of, and in several directions his influence was profound.

The first of his recorded instruments are flutes and an ivory clarinet, shown at the Brussels Industrial Exhibition of 1830, and a clarinet with no fewer than 24 keys made in 1834, which he played and exhibited in 1835. In 1838 he patented a bass clarinet which surpassed any then extant, and it was probably about this time that he began the work which led finally to the saxophone. Feeling the need of a wider scope than he found in Belgium, distressed by family bereavements and disgusted by the withdrawal on a specious pretext of a major award at the 1841 Brussels Exhibition, Sax decided to go abroad. Having declined offers from London and St Petersburg, he moved to Paris in 1842, where he lost no time in seeking influential contacts, first among them Berlioz, who did much to recommend the young man and his ideas. Others who assisted him were Rossini, Halévy, Meyerbeer and Fétis.

Once settled in a modest workshop, Sax began to manufacture standard brass and woodwind instruments of superb quality, soon introducing improvements of his own as well as devising new instruments. The range of this work is illustrated by the French patent records of the next ten years: the families of saxhorns (1845) and saxotrombas (1845); the saxophones (1846; see Saxophone, fig.2); an attachment for the military bugle to give it a chromatic compass (1849); a bassoon on ‘rational’ lines (1840, 1851); an improved trombone (1852); and an original system of six independent valves for brass instruments (1852). He put his inventive powers to practically every band and orchestral instrument, devising, among other things, kettledrums without shells, a double bass tuned in 5ths and an improved piano. He also experimented with concert-hall acoustics and conceived other musical and non-musical ideas, some of them bizarre. Sax left no proper account of how he arrived at the idea that eventually became the saxophone, but there is a strong possibility that it came about through experiments begun in Brussels to improve the unstable tones of the ophicleide. To demonstrate his various instruments Sax formed a small band of competent musicians which performed regularly at his factory, often before persons of note.

By 1845 the central authority was showing concern about the declining standards of French army music, and early in that year Sax addressed himself to the Minister of War, Count Rumigny, with proposals for reform incorporating the use of his own instruments, some designed expressly for service conditions. A commission of enquiry was set up under the presidency of the minister which resulted in a public contest on 22 April between a band of 38 directed by Sax and a much larger military band of the traditional constitution. The judgment of a large and representative jury resulted in the official adoption of Sax’s instruments and gave him what was virtually a concealed monopoly in French military music.

The début of a young, active and ambitious foreign rival was not well received by the older established instrument makers in France, and almost at once Sax found his activities obstructed by them. Certainly he was not above producing his own version of the ideas of others. Quite early he adopted the ‘Berliner Pumpen’ of Wilhelm Wieprecht and Moritz, for example. Nevertheless, extreme measures were taken by some of the Paris makers. Sax was subjected to vicious press campaigns; his best workers were tempted away by higher salaries; a mysterious fire destroyed part of his factory; he was even attacked physically. It was not long before the law was invoked, and suits for nullity of his patents were preferred. For the remainder of his life he was involved in a series of lawsuits, some initiated by him in retaliation, and on his death some remained unsettled. One such was that instituted by the Lyons maker Rivet, probably instigated by others. Here nullity was claimed on the grounds that in the saxhorns the bore dimensions had been established in previous instruments, the principle of the piston valve had been worked out by Blühmel (see Valve (i)) and the general shape of the instruments had already been adopted by other makers. Sax won this case, but lost many others. The lawsuits ruined him (he was declared bankrupt in 1856 and again in 1873, although he persisted in his work with great fortitude) and several of his attackers. It is said that Sax’s achievements in military music, for which he was decorated by France and several other countries, deprived some renowned makers of their principal outlet, among them Raoux, Labbaye, Halary and Besson, and led to the premature closure of their businesses. After Sax’s death his sons continued the business under more peaceful conditions, and one of them, Adolphe-Edward Sax (1859–1945), became director of the stage band at the Opéra, a post which his father had held from 1858 until his death.

Of Sax’s major inventions only the saxhorn and the saxophone achieved lasting use. The saxophone was appreciated from the first by both civil and military musicians and instruction in the instrument under the direction of the inventor himself was added to the syllabus of the Paris Conservatoire in 1858. The class, however, was suspended in 1871 and not reinstated until 1942, when it was re-formed under the direction of the virtuoso player Marcel Mule. A quartet of saxophones has become standard in the wind band. Its inventor could never have imagined the popularity that would come to the saxophone as it came to symbolize the spirit of ‘The Jazz Age’ after World War I. The notoriety and prejudice thus engendered in ‘legitimate’ circles against the instrument had, happily, evaporated by the end of the 20th century.

Through the influence of the Distin Family Quintet in the middle of the 19th century, the saxhorn in its various sizes laid the foundation for the British brass band, which soon spread to other countries, keeping alive Sax’s concept of a set of instruments homogeneous in design and technique (see Band (i)).

Sax

(3) Alphonse [Antoine] Sax

(b Brussels, 9 May 1822; d Paris, 26 June 1874). Son of (1) Charles-Joseph Sax. He began a musical career as flute lauréat at the Brussels Conservatory. After a short period in business in that city he joined his brother in Paris in 1844. In 1860 he set up independently, but after a quarrel with Adolphe over ‘ascending pistons’ at the 1862 London International Exhibition his business declined; he was declared bankrupt in 1864. He was involved with and patented many non-musical inventions but sank into obscurity after 1867.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Waterhouse-LangwillI

G. Kastner: Manuel général de musique militaire (Paris, 1848/R)

C. Pierre: La facture instrumentale à l’Exposition universelle de 1889 (Paris, 1890)

C. Pierre: Les facteurs d’instruments de musique (Paris, 1893), 319, 333, 349, 359

E. Closson: La facture des instruments de musique en Belgique (Brussels, 1935)

P. Gilson: Les géniales inventions d’Adolphe Sax (Brussels, 1939)

A. Remy: La vie tourmentée d’Adolphe Sax (Brussels, 1939)

M. Haine: Adolphe Sax (1814–1894): sa vie, son oeuvre et ses instruments de musique (Brussels, 1980)

W. Horwood: Adolphe Sax (1814–1894): his Life and Legacy (Baldock, 1980–83)

R. Ingham, ed.: The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone (Cambridge, 1998)

K. Ellis: ‘The Fair Sax: Women, Brass-playing and the Instrument Trade in 1860s Paris’, JRMA, cxxiv (1999), 221–54