In the 1770s, the French artist
Jacques-Louis David carried out extensive researches into the ancient Roman instruments that appeared on
Trajan's Column in Rome. Two of these instruments – the straight
tuba and the curved
cornu – were revived in
Revolutionary France as the
buccin and
tuba curva. To devise the saxtubas Sax merely added valves to these natural instruments, thus providing them with chromatic
compasses. Furthermore, he designed them in such a way that the valves were hidden from general view, thus giving the impression that the instruments were primitive
natural trumpets only capable of playing notes from a single
harmonic series. The saxtuba was first conceived by Sax at his workshop in the Rue Saint-Georges in Paris around 1845. On 5 May 1849 Sax applied for a patent for a series of brasswind instruments fitted with cylinders. On 16 July 1849 he was granted French Patent 8351. The saxtubas were patented in 1852, in a certificate of addition to the main patent of 1849. Like Sax's
saxhorns and
saxotrombas, which were also covered by this patent, the saxtubas were equipped with
pavillons tournants – that is to say, their bells could be pointed forward – which was considered ideal for instruments intended to be played by marching or mounted bands in the open air. The cylinders referred to in the patent application were
piston valves which allowed the player to lower the pitch of the instrument's natural or open
harmonics by one or more
semitones. In 1843 Sax had patented his own version of the Berlin piston valve (i.e. the
Berliner Pumpenventil, which had been invented independently by
Heinrich Stölzel in 1827 and
Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht in 1833). These were independent valves, which were not designed to be used in combination with one another, though the intonational problems that arose when they were so used could often be corrected by the player's technique. This was especially true in the case of the higher-pitched half-tube instruments, which were usually provided with just three valves, allowing the player to lower the pitch of any open note by one, two or three semitones when the valves were used one at a time, or by four, five or six semitones when the valves were used in combination. Before the invention of compensating valves (which could be used in combination without producing faulty intonation), lower-pitched instruments generally required extra valves in order to lower the pitch of an open note by more than three semitones. In 1859 Sax applied his system of six independent valves to the saxtuba. The saxtubas made their first public appearance at the
premiere of
Fromental Halévy's opera
Le Juif errant (
The Wandering Jew) at the
Paris Opera on 23 April 1852. At the time, Sax was musical director of the Opéra's stage band (or
banda), so it was not unusual for instruments of his design to be showcased in popular productions. Although Sax appears to have designed the saxtuba as early as 1845, it is possible that he did not actually manufacture any specimens until they were required for
Le Juif errant in 1852. In the opera, the saxtubas are first heard on stage in the Triumphal March (No. 17) at the end of Act III. A total of eight different sizes of saxtuba were required to play ten individual parts. The saxtubas are not referred to by this name in the only surviving copy of the full score; On both occasions the performers are instructed to march across the stage, playing martial music typical of the period as they do so. This music has been compared to the
Apothéose from Berlioz's
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale of 1840. François-Joseph Fétis, who reviewed the opera's première, reported that the sound of the Sax's saxtuba
banda was out of all proportion to that of the orchestra in the pit. At subsequent performances the instruments were
muted, which resulted in a much better balance between the two bodies.
Le Juif errant was not a success, despite being given fifty times over two seasons at the Paris Opéra; when it disappeared from the repertoire, it took the saxtuba with it. The only other notable public appearance of the saxtubas occurred less than a month after the opera's première, on 10 May 1852, when twelve saxtubas participated in a military ceremony on the
Champ de Mars, Paris, in which the President of the French Republic
Louis Napoleon distributed the colours to his army. Although a total of 1500 musicians from thirty regiments were employed in the ceremony, the twelve saxtubas overwhelmed all the other instruments. According to an eyewitness the saxtubas were played by the same civilian players who had played them at the Opéra the previous month. The existence of a few saxtubas from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century – including six specimens manufactured by Sax's son Adolphe-Edouard – suggests that the instrument did not become completely obsolete after the disappearance of
Le Juif errant from the repertoire. Records preserved in the
Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra National de Paris indicate sporadic appearances of saxtubas of various sizes in operatic productions throughout the late nineteenth century, both as solo instruments in the pit and as theatrical instruments in the onstage
banda.
Jules Massenet added a saxtuba to his pit orchestra in
Le roi de Lahore (1877);
Charles Gounod used the same instrument in
Le tribut de Zamora in 1881. Massenet also wrote a solo for contrabass saxtuba in C in
Esclarmonde, which was first performed at the
Opéra-Comique in 1889. ==Sources==