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The valved bugle family devised by Adolphe Sax.
Labels a member of Adolphe Sax’s valved bugle family, always with its size: saxhorn soprano, alto, ténor, baryton, basse, contrebasse. French scores call the soprano member a bugle, and the French orchestral tuba was long a saxhorn basse in C. Read the size and key printed with the name before reading the notes.
Also spelled: Saxhorns
Patented by Sax in the 1840s, the saxhorns gave military bands a matched choir of mellow brass from top to bottom, and their descendants are today’s flugelhorn, alto (tenor) horn, baritone and euphonium. Berlioz wrote for saxhorns in Les Troyens. In new music, name the modern instrument you actually mean, since few players own an instrument called a saxhorn.
Saxhorn is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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