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{{Short description|Belgian musical instrument inventor (1814–1894)}}JOURNAL, Rice, Albert R., 2016, The bass clarinets of Adolphe Sax: his influence and legacy,weblink Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, 70, 91–105, 0771-6788, JOURNAL, von Steiger, Adrian, 2016, Sax figures: can we deduce details of Adolphe Sax's instrument production from the sources?,weblink Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap, 70, 129–148, 0771-6788, {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}}{{Expand French}}

factoids

Dinant, Provisional Government of Belgium (1814–1815)>Provisional Government of Belgium (present-day Belgium)df=yes02181406}}| death_place = Paris, FranceMontmartre Cemetery (Cimetière de Montmartre), Paris, France{{citation needed>date=June 2020}}4816249region:FR_type:landmark|display=inline}}| other_names =| known_for = Inventor of the saxophone| occupation = Inventor, musician, musical instrument designer}}(File:X5228 - Altsaxofon - Adolphe Sax - foto Mikael Bodner.jpg|thumb|upright|Saxophone produced by Sax)Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax ({{IPA-fr|ɑ̃twan ʒozɛf adɔlf saks|lang}}; 6 November 1814 – 7 February 1894){{efn|Many sources give alternative dates for Sax's death, mainly 3 and 7 February. A sign at Sax's grave in Montmartre says 7 February, for example. However, 4 February appears in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th ed., Nicolas Slonimsky); and in both the first and second editions of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.}} was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, and redesigned the bass clarinet in a fashion still used to the present day. He played the flute and clarinet.

Early life

Antoine-Joseph Sax was born on 6 November 1814 in Dinant, in what is now Belgium, to Charles-Joseph Sax and his wife Marie-Joseph (Masson).Fit for a King: An Ivory Clarinet by Charles Joseph Sax. While his given name was Antoine-Joseph, he was referred to as Adolphe from childhood.BOOK, Richard Ingham, The Cambridge companion to the saxophone, Cambridge Companions to Music, 1998, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-521-59666-4, 1–2,weblink His father and mother were instrument designers themselves, who made several changes to the design of the French horn. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age, entering two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of 15. He subsequently studied performance on those two instruments as well as voice at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Sax faced many brushes with death. As a child, he once fell from a height of three floors, hit his head on a stone and was believed dead. At the age of three, he drank a bowl full of acidic water, mistaking it for milk,BOOK, Kochnitzky, L., Adolphe Sax and his Saxophone, 1949, Рипол Классик, 978-5-87233-344-9,weblink en, and later swallowed a pin. He received serious burns from a gunpowder explosion and once fell onto a hot cast-iron frying pan, burning his side.Several times he avoided accidental poisoning and asphyxiation from sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying. Another time young Sax was struck on the head by a cobblestone and fell into a river, almost dying.His mother once said that "he's a child condemned to misfortune; he won't live". His neighbors called him "little Sax, the ghost".Rémy, Albert. "Adolphe Sax". Ville de Dinant website. Retrieved 6 November 2015.

Career and later life

After leaving the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Sax began to experiment with new instrument designs, while his parents continued their business of making conventional instruments. Sax's first important invention was an improvement in bass clarinet design, which he patented at the age of 24.{{sfn|Cottrell|2013|pp=12–13}} He relocated permanently to Paris in 1842 and began working on a new set of valved bugles. While he did not invent this instrument, his examples were much more successful than those of his rivals and became known as saxhorns. Hector Berlioz was so enamoured of these that he arranged in February 1844 for one of his pieces to be played entirely on saxhorns.{{sfn|Cottrell|2013|p=18}} They were made in seven different sizes and paved the way for the creation of the flugelhorn. Today saxhorns are sometimes used in concert bands, marching bands, and orchestras. The saxhorn also laid the groundwork for the modern euphonium.NEWS,weblink Meet the 'dangerous Belgian' who invented the sax, Boyd, Clark, 3 December 2013, The World, Public Radio International, 3 February 2018, en-US, Sax also developed the saxotromba family, valved brass instruments with narrower bore than the saxhorns, in 1845, though they survived only briefly.HUBBARD > FIRST = W. L., The American History and Encyclopedia of Music, Squire Cooley, Toledo, Ohio, 1910, 454,weblink 1-4179-0200-0, The use of saxhorns spread rapidly. The saxhorn valves were accepted as state-of-the-art in their time and remain largely unchanged today. The advances made by Adolphe Sax were soon followed by the British brass band movement, which exclusively adopted the saxhorn family of instruments.T. Herbert, The British Brass Band: a Musical and Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 4–5. A decade after saxhorns became available, the Jedforest Instrumental Band (1854weblink and The Hawick Saxhorn Band (1855)weblink were formed in the Scottish Borders.The period around 1840 saw Sax inventing the , an early unsuccessful design of contrabass clarinet. On 28 June 1846 he patented the saxophone, intended for use in orchestras and military bands.MAGAZINE,weblink June 28, 1846: Parisian Inventor Patents Saxophone, Hart, Hugh, 28 June 2010, Wired, 15 April 2021, By 1846 Sax had designed saxophones ranging from sopranino to subcontrabass, although not all were built. Composer Hector Berlioz wrote approvingly of the new instrument in 1842, but despite his support, saxophones did not become a standard part of the orchestra. Their ability to play technical passages easily like woodwinds yet project loudly like brass instruments led to their inclusion in military bands in France and elsewhere. Sax's reputation helped secure him a job teaching at the Paris Conservatory in 1857.Fred L. Hemke, The Early History of the Saxophone, (DMA dissertation), University of Wisconsin, 1975, 249–250. {{OCLC|19033726|show=all}}, {{OCLC|65652818|show=all}}.He continued to make instruments later in life and presided over the new saxophone course at the Paris Conservatory. Legal troubles involving patents continued for over 20 years, with rival instrument makers attacking the legitimacy of his patents and Sax suing them for patent infringement. He was driven into bankruptcy three times: in 1852, 1873 and 1877.Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. In 1894 he died of pneumonia in Paris, in poverty,NEWS, Adolphe Sax Obituary,weblink 6 November 2015, New-York Tribune, 10 February 1894, 12, Newspapers.com, {{Open access}} and was interred in section 5 (Avenue de Montebello) at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.File:Saxtromba sopran.jpg|SaxotrombaFile:MHS Saxhorn.jpg|SaxhornFile:Saxtuba1867.jpg|SaxtubaFile:Trombone a six pistons-IMG 0853-black.jpg|6-piston tromboneFile:Bass saxhorn, 1863.jpg|A bass saxhorn, 1863

Honors and awards

In his birthplace Dinant in Belgium the Mr Sax's House is dedicated to his life and saxophones.

• 1849: Awarded the Chevalier rank of the Legion of Honour.{{sfn|Cottrell|2013|p=33}}
• 1867: at the 1867 Paris International Exposition.{{sfn|Cottrell|2013|p=33}}
• 1995: In 1995, his likeness was featured on the front of Belgium's 200 Belgian francs banknote.WEB,weblink 200 Belgian Francs banknote 1995 Adolphe Sax,
• 2015: Google Doodle commemorated his 201st birthday.WEB,weblink Adolphe Sax's 201st Birthday,

Notes

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References

{{Reflist|30em}}

Bibliography

• Adolphe Sax and His Saxophone. KOCHNITZKY, Leon. New York, Belgian Government Information Center, 1949.
• SAX REVOLUTIONS: Adolphe Sax’s life. DIAGO, José-Modesto (dir. and prod.); Spain, [EnFin Producciones] 2014, 64 min: son. col.
• {{citation |title=Adolphe Sax |editor=Haine, Malou |publisher=Bruxelles University |year=1980}}
• {{citation |title=Sax, Mule & Co |author=Thiollet, Jean-Pierre |author-link=Jean-Pierre Thiollet |location=Paris |publisher=H & D |year=2004 |isbn=2-914266-03-0}}
• {{citation |title=Adolphe Sax 1814–1894 — His Life and Legacy |year=1983 |editor=Horwood, Wally |publisher=Egon Publishers Ltd. |isbn=0-905858-18-2}}
• {{citation |title=The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone |editor=Ingham, Richard |editor-link=Richard Ingham |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-59666-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00ingh }}
• BOOK, Cottrell, Stephen, The Saxophone, 2013, Yale University Press, 978-0-300-19095-3, 33,weblink

External links

{{commons category|Adolphe Sax}}

• Pictures of brass instruments made by Adolphe and Adolphe Edouard Sax
• EB1911, Sax, Antoine Joseph,
• {{findagrave|6797}}

{{Saxophone}}{{Authority control}}