Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

SAX SAX 231
and then set up in Brussels as a maker of windinstruments.
He had served no apprenticeship
to the trade, and his only qualification was
that he could play the serpent ; he was therefore
obliged to investigate for himself the laws
concerning the bore of instruments ; but as he
had great manual dexterity, and a turn for
invention, he was soon able to produce serpents
and flutes of fair quality. He quickly attracted
notice by his clarinets and bassoons, which
gained him a, medal at the Industrial Exhibition
of 1820, and the title of musical-instrument
maker to the court of the Netherlands, which
also encouraged him by advancing him capital.
In 1822 he began to make all kinds of windinstruments,
brass and wood, and in 1824
invented an ' omnitonic horn, ' which he continued
to perfect tUl 1846. This instrument
can be adjusted to any key by means of a
piston sliding backwards or forwards on a graduated
scale of about half an inch long, which
sets the body of the instrument in communication
with tubes of different lengths corresponding
to all the major keys. On a separate elbow is a
movable register which the player fixes opposite
the number of the key he wishes to use, and
the tube of that key being at once brought
into position, the instrument is played exactly
like an ordinary horn. Sax also invented brass
instruments producing every note in the scale,
without crooks, pistons, or cylinders. He took
out patents for a keyed harp, and a piano and
a guitar on a new system, but his efforts were
mainly directed to perfecting the clarinet,
especially the bass clarinet, and discovering
new methods of boring brass and wood wind
instruments with a view to make them more
exactly in tune. His exertions were crowned
with success, and he obtained gratifying distinctions
at the Brussels Industrial Exhibition
of 1835.
Charles Sax was the father of eleven children,
of whom two sons were distinguished in the
same Hue. The eldest of these,
Antoine Joseph, known sis Adolphb Sax,
bom at Dinant, Nov. 6, 1814, was brought up
in his father's workshop, and as a child was
remarkable for manual skill, and love of music.
He entered the Brussels Conservatoire and
studied the flute and clarinet,—the latter with
Bender, who considered him one of his best
pupils. Like his father his efforts were directed
mainly to the improvement of that instrument,
especially the bass clarinet, and he even designed
a double-bass clarinet in Bb. In the course
of his endeavours to improve the tune of his
favourite instrument he invented an entire
family of brass instruments with a new quality
of tone, which he called Saxophones (see below).
The hope of making both fame and money led
him to Paris ; he arrived in 1842, and established
himself in the Rue St. Georges, in small
premises which he was afterwards forced to
enlarge. He had no capital beyond his brains
and fingers, which he used both as a manufacturer
and an artist ; but he had the active
support of Berlioz, Halevy, and G. Ksistner,
and this soon procured him money, tools, and
workmen. He exhibited in the French Exhibition
of 1844, and obtained a silver medal for
his brass and wood wind instruments, a great
stimulus to a man who looked down upon all
his rivals, and aimed not only at eclipsing
them, but at securing the monopoly of furnishing
musical instruments to the French army. In
1845 he took out a patent for the Saxhorn, a
new kind of bugle, and for a family of cylinder
instruments 'called Saxotrombas, intermediate
between the Saxhorn and the cylinder trumpet.
On June 22, 1846, he registered the Saxophone,
which has remained his most important discovei-y.
A man of such inventive power naturally
excited much jealousy and ill-feeling
among those whose business suffered from his
discoveries, but his tact and wisdom made
numerous and powerful friends, among others
G^n&al de Eumigny, Aide-de-camp to Louis
Philippe, and a host of newspaper writers who
were perpetually trumpeting his praises. He
lost Eo opportunity of vaunting the superiority
of his instruments over those in use in the
French military bands, at a special competition
held between the two ; and the superiority,
whether deserved or not, soon resulted in a
monopoly, the first effect of which was to
banish from the military bands all horns, oboes,
and bassoons.
The Paris Industrial Exhibition of 1849, at
which Sax obtained a gold medal, brought his
three families of instruments still more into
notice ;
and he received the Council Medal at
the Great Exhibition of 1851. In spite of
these merited honours, he became bankrupt in
1852. He soon, however, made an arrangement
with his creditors, and on recommencing business
entered for the Paris Exhibition of 1855,
and gained another gold medal. "When the
pitch was reformed in 1859 every orchestra
and military band in France had to procure
newwind-instruments—an enormous advantage,
by which any one else in Sax's place would
have made a fortune ; but with all his abUity
and shrewdness he was not a man of business,
and his affairs became more and more hopelessly
involved. There was fuU scope for his inventive
faculties under the Second Empire, and he
introduced various improvements into the different
piston instruments, only one of which need
be specified, viz. the substitution of a single
ascending piston for the group of descending
ones. This principle he adapted to both conical
and cylindrical instruments. He also invented
instruments with seven beUs and six separate
pistons ; instruments with rotatory bells for
altering the direction of the sound, and a host
of smaller improvements and experiments, aU