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Of all the band instruments, the saxophone has generated the most controversy. Its creator, who earnestly set out to make a new kind of instrument in the 1840s, was attacked for making a tool of the devil, capable of manipulating a listener’s...
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Of all the band instruments, the saxophone has generated the most controversy. Its creator, who earnestly set out to make a new kind of instrument in the 1840s, was attacked for making a tool of the devil, capable of manipulating a listener’s sexual desires with its sound. For the next 170 years, it would be associated with the military, Vaudeville and circus folks, African-American communities, and members of the lower classes, as well as general impropriety and questionable morals. The saxophone, the only “woodwind” instrument that’s never actually been made of wood, uses a single reed and an all-metal body, usually brass, that’s played similarly to a clarinet. The alto sax is the most popular instrument in the family. The 16-inch soprano sax is the only sax with a straight bell; the contrabass sax stands 6-1/2 feet tall. Belgian clarinetist and flutist Antoine-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax, the son of the country’s head instrument maker, became obsessed with the notion of creating a new instrument in his 20s. During the early 1800s, Sax noted an imbalance in orchestras: The brass instruments overwhelmed the woodwinds, while the woodwinds drowned out the strings. He wanted his instrument to create an equilibrium between the timbre of the clarinet and the power of the trumpet. In 1841, he succeeded, inventing the first saxophone—a C bass sax he called a “bass horn”—which he promptly showed to his friend Hector Berlioz. The great composer was wowed by this one-of-a-kind versatile instrument. Adolphe Sax moved to Paris in 1842 to promote his invention. Berlioz helped him, reviewing the new instrument in the magazine “Journal des Debats” and featuring the instrument he dubbed “le saxophon” in an 1844 concert. That same year, the sax had its first big public debut, at the Paris Industrial Exhibition, and by December the instrument had a role in George Kastner’s opera, “Last King of Judea,” performed at the Paris Conservatory. As an experiment to prove the tonal...
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