Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph (known as Adolphe) Sax (6 November 1814 – 7 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who played the flute and clarinet. He is best known for inventing the saxophone.
Bio
Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant in Wallonia, Belgium. Adolphe began to make his own instruments at an early age. He entered two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition at the age of fifteen. He studied those two instruments at the Royal School of Singing in Brussels.
Adolphe's first important invention was an improvement of the bass clarinet design. He patented this at the age of twenty-four. In 1841, Sax moved to Paris. Around this time he invented the saxophone.
He got a job teaching at the Paris Conservatoire starting in 1867.
Sax suffered from lip cancer between 1853 and 1858 but made a full recovery. He died in 1894 in Paris.
Books about Adolphe Sax
- Adolphe Sax, sa vie son oeuvre, Malou Haine, Brussel University Press, Brussel, 1980
- Sax, Mule & Co, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, H & D, Paris, 2004 ISBN 2 914 266 03 0
Adolphe Sax Media
- Saxtromba sopran.jpg
Saxtromba Sopran
Saxhorn used by the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. The backward-facing bell version became the most common brass instrument in Civil War bands because troops marching behind the band could hear the music.
- Saxtuba1867.jpg
Image of a saxtubist from Le Monde illustré of 1867
- Trombone a six pistons-IMG 0853-black.jpg
Six-valved trombone by Adolphe Sax, Paris, 1866
- Bass saxhorn, 1863.jpg
A bass saxhorn built by Adolphe Sax in 1863 (1814–1894)