Ophicleide
Encyclopedia
The ophicleide is a family of conical bore, brass
keyed-bugles
. It has a similar shape to the sudrophone
.
section of the Romantic
orchestra
, often replacing the serpent
, a Renaissance
instrument which was thought to be outdated. Its long tubing bends back on itself, and it is played with a cupped mouthpiece similar to modern trombone and euphonium mouthpieces. It originally had nine keys, later expanded to as many as twelve keys, covering the large tone hole
s. The various members of the ophicleide family may be pitched in B♭and C (bass), or E♭ or F (alto). Contrabass members were known, but rare. The most common members are the bass ophicleides pitched in B♭ or C. Adolph Sax and the modern maker Robb Stewart have also created soprano ophicleides an octave above the bass. Two modern contrabass ophicleides in Eb were built by Mr. Stewart as well.
The bass ophicleide was first scored for in the opera
Olimpie
by Gaspare Spontini
in 1819. Other famous works which employ it include Felix Mendelssohn
's Elias
and Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
(originally scored for English Bass Horn), as well as Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique
, which was originally scored to include both an ophicleide and a serpent
. The instrument was standard in French mid-19th century serious operas by Meyerbeer, Halevy, and Auber, as well as English operas by Michael Balfe, Vincent Wallace, and others. Verdi and Wagner also composed for the ophicleide as did Sir Arthur Sullivan
in his Overture Di Ballo (which, like Wagner's Rienzi
, also has an additional part for serpent
).
The ophicleide (oficleide) was used in Brazilian choro
bands well into the 20th century—soloist Irineu de Almeida was the major performer on the instrument—until it was superseded by the saxophone.
and euphonium
through careful and deliberate marketing, although it remained popular in Italy
until the early twentieth century. One of the last great ophicleide players was the English musician Sam Hughes
. The instrument has also been considered a direct ancestor of the saxophone
: anecdotally, Adolphe Sax
, while repairing an ophicleide, put a woodwind mouthpiece on the instrument and liked the sound, leading to the saxophone's later creation; however, this story is not considered plausible, since the developmental history of the saxophone is well documented, and the ophicleide and saxophone are only superficially similar to each other—in particular their wide conical bore, and large tone holes.
word ophis (ὄφις)"serpent" + kleis (κλείς) "keys", since it was conceived of as a serpent with keys. Like the serpent, some found it difficult to play, and early twentieth century musicians felt it had a somewhat unpredictable sound, leading to the doggerel
:
and quinticlave (the other two members of its 'family') has a fingering system like no other wind instrument. All keys except one are normally closed, opening only when a finger presses the associated key lever. Just below the bell is the largest of the key-covered tone holes, but this one is normally open, closing only when the lever is pressed. On an ophicleide in C, this normally open tone hole is the acoustic bell, with the bell itself having little effect on sound or pitch, and the sound produced with no key levers pressed is a C. If the player presses the lever for this normally open tone hole, that hole is closed and now air column extends past this hole up to the bell, lowering the pitch by one half step to B (On a B-flat instrument, the "all fingers off" pitch is B-flat, and with the normally open hole closed the pitch is lowered to A). In general, the player can obtain all the "partial" pitches available for a given air column length. To play a higher series of partials, he opens one of the normally closed tone holes, effectively making that hole the "bell" of the instrument, with a corresponding shorter air column and higher series of pitches. The left hand controls three such tone holes plus the normally open one below the bell. Most pitches over the range of the instrument can be obtained by using only the left hand's set of tone holes, and the right hand can hold and stabilize the instrument. At the point where the air column is shortened by opening all of the left hand tone holes, there comes a difficult couple of notes that can best be played by continuing to shorten the air column with two fingers of the right hand, before the series of partials "wraps" and the left hand is used again for another set of notes. This repeats until about one half octave in the lowest register, where the pitches cannot be obtained very well using the holes closer to the bell, whether left or right hand controlled. For these few notes only, the other fingers of the right hand can open a few more tone holes that are relatively closer to the mouthpiece than to the bell. With the exception of these special few pitches in the low octave, the combinations of partials on various sets of opened tone holes results in the left hand fingers going through something very similar to what they would be doing to manipulate the valves on a modern brass instrument. This system is very unlike any other key-and-tone-hole instruments, including woodwinds.
As of 2011, there are only five contrabass ophicleides known to exist. Three are in museums, and two are privately owned: one in Cooperstown, New York
and one in Petaluma, California
. Those in private hands were both made by Robb Stewart and are the only playable examples.
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
keyed-bugles
Bugle (instrument)
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series...
. It has a similar shape to the sudrophone
Sudrophone
The sudrophone is a brass instrument invented by François Sudre in Paris, its shape resembling that of an ophicleide. It was patented in 1892. It has a cylindrical bore and four Perinet valves. Its length is 86 cm and the bell diameter is 17 cm...
.
History
The ophicleide was invented in 1817 and patented in 1821 by French instrument maker Jean Hilaire Asté (also known as Halary or Haleri) as an extension to the keyed bugle or Royal Kent bugle family. It was the structural cornerstone of the brassBrass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
section of the Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, often replacing the serpent
Serpent (instrument)
A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
, a Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
instrument which was thought to be outdated. Its long tubing bends back on itself, and it is played with a cupped mouthpiece similar to modern trombone and euphonium mouthpieces. It originally had nine keys, later expanded to as many as twelve keys, covering the large tone hole
Tone hole
A tone hole is an opening in the body of a wind instrument which, when covered by a key, alters the pitch of the sound produced.The resonant frequencies of the an air column in a pipe are inversely proportional to the pipe's effective length. For a pipe with no tone holes, the effective length is...
s. The various members of the ophicleide family may be pitched in B♭and C (bass), or E♭ or F (alto). Contrabass members were known, but rare. The most common members are the bass ophicleides pitched in B♭ or C. Adolph Sax and the modern maker Robb Stewart have also created soprano ophicleides an octave above the bass. Two modern contrabass ophicleides in Eb were built by Mr. Stewart as well.
The bass ophicleide was first scored for in the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
Olimpie
Olimpie
Olimpie is an opera in three acts by Gaspare Spontini. The French libretto, by Armand-Michel Dieulafoy and Charles Brifaut, is based on the play of the same name by Voltaire...
by Gaspare Spontini
Gaspare Spontini
Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini was an Italian opera composer and conductor, extremely celebrated in his time, though largely forgotten after his death.-Biography:...
in 1819. Other famous works which employ it include Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
's Elias
Elijah (oratorio)
Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....
and Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream
At separate times, Felix Mendelssohn composed music for William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1826, near the start of his career, Mendelssohn wrote a concert overture . In 1842, only a few years before his death, he wrote incidental music for a production of the play, into...
(originally scored for English Bass Horn), as well as Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...
, which was originally scored to include both an ophicleide and a serpent
Serpent (instrument)
A serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
. The instrument was standard in French mid-19th century serious operas by Meyerbeer, Halevy, and Auber, as well as English operas by Michael Balfe, Vincent Wallace, and others. Verdi and Wagner also composed for the ophicleide as did Sir Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
in his Overture Di Ballo (which, like Wagner's Rienzi
Rienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
, also has an additional part for serpent
Serpent
Serpent may refer to:* Serpent, a synonym for snake* Serpent , the name given to a snake in a religious or mythological context* Serpent , said to have tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden* Serpent in astronomy...
).
The ophicleide (oficleide) was used in Brazilian choro
Choro
Choro , traditionally called chorinho , is a Brazilian popular music instrumental style. Its origins are in 19th century Rio de Janeiro. In spite of the name, the style often has a fast and happy rhythm, characterized by virtuosity, improvisation, subtile modulations and full of syncopation and...
bands well into the 20th century—soloist Irineu de Almeida was the major performer on the instrument—until it was superseded by the saxophone.
Eclipse
The ophicleide was eventually succeeded by the tubaTuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
and euphonium
Euphonium
The euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
through careful and deliberate marketing, although it remained popular in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
until the early twentieth century. One of the last great ophicleide players was the English musician Sam Hughes
Sam Hughes (musician)
Sam Hughes was the last great ophicleide player and one of the greatest who ever played the instrument in its short history.-Biography:Samuel Hughes was born in Trentham, Staffordshire, England, the son of a bricklayer....
. The instrument has also been considered a direct ancestor of the saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
: anecdotally, Adolphe Sax
Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax was a Belgian musical instrument designer and musician who played the flute and clarinet, and is best known for having invented the saxophone.-Biography:...
, while repairing an ophicleide, put a woodwind mouthpiece on the instrument and liked the sound, leading to the saxophone's later creation; however, this story is not considered plausible, since the developmental history of the saxophone is well documented, and the ophicleide and saxophone are only superficially similar to each other—in particular their wide conical bore, and large tone holes.
Name
The instrument's name comes from the GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word ophis (ὄφις)"serpent" + kleis (κλείς) "keys", since it was conceived of as a serpent with keys. Like the serpent, some found it difficult to play, and early twentieth century musicians felt it had a somewhat unpredictable sound, leading to the doggerel
Doggerel
Doggerel is a derogatory term for verse considered of little literary value. The word probably derived from dog, suggesting either ugliness, puppyish clumsiness, or unpalatability in the 1630s.-Variants:...
:
-
- "The Ophicleide, like mortal sin
- Was fostered by the serpent."
Playing
The ophicleide, like the keyed bugleBugle (instrument)
The bugle is one of the simplest brass instruments, having no valves or other pitch-altering devices. All pitch control is done by varying the player's embouchure, since the bugle has no other mechanism for controlling pitch. Consequently, the bugle is limited to notes within the harmonic series...
and quinticlave (the other two members of its 'family') has a fingering system like no other wind instrument. All keys except one are normally closed, opening only when a finger presses the associated key lever. Just below the bell is the largest of the key-covered tone holes, but this one is normally open, closing only when the lever is pressed. On an ophicleide in C, this normally open tone hole is the acoustic bell, with the bell itself having little effect on sound or pitch, and the sound produced with no key levers pressed is a C. If the player presses the lever for this normally open tone hole, that hole is closed and now air column extends past this hole up to the bell, lowering the pitch by one half step to B (On a B-flat instrument, the "all fingers off" pitch is B-flat, and with the normally open hole closed the pitch is lowered to A). In general, the player can obtain all the "partial" pitches available for a given air column length. To play a higher series of partials, he opens one of the normally closed tone holes, effectively making that hole the "bell" of the instrument, with a corresponding shorter air column and higher series of pitches. The left hand controls three such tone holes plus the normally open one below the bell. Most pitches over the range of the instrument can be obtained by using only the left hand's set of tone holes, and the right hand can hold and stabilize the instrument. At the point where the air column is shortened by opening all of the left hand tone holes, there comes a difficult couple of notes that can best be played by continuing to shorten the air column with two fingers of the right hand, before the series of partials "wraps" and the left hand is used again for another set of notes. This repeats until about one half octave in the lowest register, where the pitches cannot be obtained very well using the holes closer to the bell, whether left or right hand controlled. For these few notes only, the other fingers of the right hand can open a few more tone holes that are relatively closer to the mouthpiece than to the bell. With the exception of these special few pitches in the low octave, the combinations of partials on various sets of opened tone holes results in the left hand fingers going through something very similar to what they would be doing to manipulate the valves on a modern brass instrument. This system is very unlike any other key-and-tone-hole instruments, including woodwinds.
As of 2011, there are only five contrabass ophicleides known to exist. Three are in museums, and two are privately owned: one in Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown, New York
Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...
and one in Petaluma, California
Petaluma, California
Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. In the 2010 Census the population was 57,941.Located in Petaluma is the Rancho Petaluma Adobe, a National Historic Landmark. It was built beginning in 1836 by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, then Commandant of the San...
. Those in private hands were both made by Robb Stewart and are the only playable examples.
External links
- The Ophicleide—contains photos and a fingering guide
- John's Ophicleide Directory—photographic directory of ophicleide players
- Nick Byrne's Wonderful World of the Ophicleide—dedicated to the performance and study of the ophicleide, with pictures and audio examples
- The Serpent Website—contains photos, history, fingering guides, discography, etc. (focuses mostly on the serpent, but has information on ophicleides as well)
- "A Lament for Sam Hughes", by Trevor Herbert
- http://www.ophicleide.com/articles/About.htm, by Nick Byrne, virtuoso and authority on the ophicleide.
- http://www.britishtrombonesociety.org/resources/archived-articles/friends-and-relations-the-ophicleide.html