Over the past 2 days I have featured articles about the subcontrabass saxophone built by Brazil’s J’Élle Stainer company. The saxophone is owned by Attilio Berni, who runs the Italian Saxophobia project.
As promised in the first article—which featured a video of the sax in its European concert debut—today’s article will be a photo essay of this massive horn. If you’re still using a dial-up connection, you might as well go and get yourself something to drink while you’re waiting for this page to load. :cheers:
Although I have optimized the photos on this page for the web, they are still quite large. There was no way to make them smaller, and still provide the details in the size and clarity that I know most of you want.
A big thanks to Attilio Berni for sharing this very special instrument with us. It truly is a wondrous piece of saxophonic artistry.
Attilio and his J’Élle Stainer subcontrabass saxophone.
The subcontrabass next to a Bb soprano.
Attilio Berni performing @ the Napoleonic Museum in Rome on Jan. 7, 2012. This was the horn’s European debut.
If you haven’t yet read Attilio’s article about this instrument, and what it is like to play, you can find it here.
Unnecessary aberration. It is not worth the material used and the workmanship.
And what exactly makes you say this? Have you played it? Have you played one like it? Do you know anything about it?
Oh wow, that sure is one big saxophone and something that I have yet to see. I wonder though, how loud of a noise does that saxophone make? It sure would be fun to play an instrument like that one day in my life.
The general rule of course is the lower it instrument the lower its volume to the human ear. If you’d like to hear it in concert to get an idea, here is Attilio Berni performing with it: