The history of the saxophone – at least the way one newspaper told it
It was only a few weeks ago, on June 5, that I wrote a story about a 1939 newspaper article in which the reporter noted that the saxophone was a difficult instrument to play well. If you’ve seen any of the previous historical saxophone articles that I’ve written about, you know that that article from the Ottawa Citizen was rather unusual in its support of our instrument.
Then this morning I just so happened to come across another article in which the author also recognized the saxophone’s level of difficulty. And just like the Ottawa Citizen article, the author didn’t want to burn sax players at the stake either. Progress!
By the late 1930s/early 1940s the saxophone’s rep was being rehabilitated and it was on its way back to social acceptability. Check out the following article titled, History of the Saxophone, from a 1940 edition of the Hearld-Journal.
Source: The Hearold-Journal Young Folk’s Page, May 5, 1940
OK, so the author got a few of the facts wrong. I don’t remember reading anywhere before that the design of the saxophone was “by accident”. All the sources that I have seen in my 30+ years reading about saxophones, indicate that our horn was invented when Adolphe Sax went about deliberately looking for ways to improve on the bass clarinet.
Yes, the ophieleide was likely a source of inspiration for Adolphe Sax, but to say the saxophone was an accidental discovery really sells the Belgian musical instrument inventor short. He was a genius when it came to instrument design, sadly however, that did not translate into a financial windfall for him. Multiple lawsuits were contributing factors to the man dying with very little money to his name.
As far as the rest of the history of the saxophone presented in the 1940 article by John Glominski, the second column is more accurate.
The city of Dinant (Adolphe Sax’s Belgian hometown), states on their website:
In his book “The Saxophone” in 1955, Marcel Perrin, professor at the Algiers Conservatory, and the founder of a quartet, took the view that “the literature on the saxophone can in fact be divided into three stages:
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“the stagnant period: 1845 to 1918: timid, staid compositions, ‘rococo’ style, with theme and variations, salon and competition music.
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the period of explosion: 1918-1930: the age of jazz! … America! … a triumphal breach in the grey veil of gradual obliteration that was all but fatal for the sax.
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the period of reason: 1930 to date: the saxophone was at last understood, and started to have ‘its music’. It became more mellow, more ‘serious’ and, having found its own true atmosphere, ended up being an essential ingredient of the greatest concerts”
A slightly more current view of the history of our instrument
If you are interested in learning more about the history of the saxophone, there is a relatively new book that you might like to check out. In 2012, the Yale University Press published The Saxophone, by Stephen Cottrell.
I picked up the book a few months ago through Amazon, but haven’t found time to read it in its entirety yet. Once I have, I’ll write a detailed review about it.
Thanks for this post Helen .I know just about all that is generally known about the sax but wiill try to get this book to see what I have missed .By the way I bought another HOHNER PRESIDENT TENOR from a seller in Germany .It is in Frieburg with a cousin of mine to whose address it was sent by the seller and it will be brought down to Colombo personally by a friend .Will let you know about the tone etc .It’s in gold lacquer and around 1959 manufacture which I guessed by the early serial number which is about a few hundred away from the silver finished one I have been using for 51 years
Hi Kumar.
It is so nice to see you here again. I was wondering what happened to you. I was hoping that you were doing OK.
Have you been using your Hohner with a replacement neck all this time? I knew you had bought another horn a few months ago, but assumed that you had received it by now.
The book is quite interesting, and from what I have saw when I briefly glanced through it, it is much more comprehensive than other history books written on the subject. If you have a library of saxophone books, this one is a very nice addition to it.
Do stay well Kumar. If there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask… helen
27 July 14
Recently you posted an email on the Saxie. I would have replied on that post, but unfortunately, I deleted it. This morning while reviewing some old issues of The Saxophone Journal, I ran across a Paul Cohen “Vintage Saxophones Revisited” article on both the Saxie and the Clar-O-Sax. That issue is Nov/Dec 1995, vol 20 #3.
trm
Hi ted.
I took a look for the article online, but sadly couldn’t find it. Very few of these old articles by Dr. Cohen have been preserved as PDF’s. That’s too bad really, since many of the original magazines will end up in the recycling bins over time.
I would love to see someone take all these old Vintage Saxophones Revisted articles and convert them to PDF files, and upload them to Scribd. That would be a great way to keep them in the public domain longer. :2cents:
I’m fairly certain that the journalist intentionally published Sax’s name somewhat incorrectly as Sax was christened Antoine-Joseph. But more importantly, even though the U.S. had not entered the War yet, the name Adolph was much feared in the world. The Germans had started the Blitz against London by 1940. Had he used Adolphe the subject of the article would have immediately been received as negative, even though the NAZIs had banned the public performance of saxophones for awhile themselves.
The enceclopedia Brittanica uses the name “Antoine-Joseph Sax, also called Adolphe Sax”.
When and why his name is changed to Adolphe is unknown.
When the name Adolph(e) was intentionally not used by the writer you would expect him also to mention the forbidden arts (entarte Kunst) and its relation to the saxophone (the saxophone was not forbidden, jazz was).
As he did not mention it I doubt that he feared the name of Adolph at that time.
It is just a very positive paper on saxophones from a welinformed writer.
@MontyMac & Theo: You are of course both correct. Adolphe Sax’s given name was indeed Antoine-Joseph.
This is what happens when you have an editor—really I do—who is not a subject matter expert. Somedays she reads my articles, other days she doesn’t. On the days that she does, I generally don’t look at the edits after the fact. This is a good example of why I should. 😳
I will correct that edit/addition. Thanks for pointing it out…hk
Update: done.