Sax, Adolphe

Adolphe Sax, byname of Antoine-Joseph Sax, (born November 6, 1814, Dinant, Belgium—died February 7, 1894, Paris, France), Belgian-French maker of musical instruments and inventor of the saxophone.

Sax was the son of Charles Joseph Sax (1791–1865), a maker of wind and brass instruments, as well as of pianos, harps, and guitars. Adolphe studied the flute and clarinet at the Brussels Conservatory and in 1842 went to Paris. There he exhibited the saxophone, a single-reed instrument made of metal, with a conical bore, overblowing at the octave, which had resulted from his efforts to improve the tone of the bass clarinet. It was patented in 1846. With his father he evolved the saxhorn (patented 1845), a development on the bugle horn; the saxo-tromba, producing a tone between that of the bugle and the trumpet; and the saxtuba. Sax discovered that it is the proportions given to a column of air vibrating in a sonorous tube, and these alone, that determine the timbre produced.

In 1857 Sax was appointed instructor of the saxophone at the Paris Conservatory. Later he improved several instruments and invented others without, however, establishing a basis for their commercial exploitation. Many of his instruments were accepted for the French army bands, and for 10 years Sax was involved in lawsuits with competing instrument makers seeking to have his patents revoked. In his 80th year he was living in abject poverty; Emmanuel Chabrier, Jules Massenet, and Camille Saint-Saëns were obliged to petition the minister of fine arts to come to his aid.