Instruments of the Orchestra — S: Saxophone

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Instruments of the Orchestra — S: Saxophone S is for the saxophone — the youngest voice in this season's alphabet, and the one instrument here with a birthday: registered by Adolphe Sax in Paris on June 22, 1846, as Grove's Dictionary records it. A conical brass tube with a clarinet's reed for a voice, it conquered the military bands of France by decree, was suppressed, was reinstated — and still waited a generation at the orchestra's door. Grove's Dictionary tells the maker's whole improbable life, from the Brussels clarinet workshop to bankruptcy and the sale of his own collection; the Stearns Collection catalogue of 1918 shows the instruments themselves, signed and numbered. Droll Blanket narrates. Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices. Chapters: 00:00 Opening theme 00:35 Introduction 03:30 Chapter One: The Alphabet at S 05:40 Chapter Two: The Instrument Itself 10:16 Chapter Three: The Maker 16:17 Chapter Four: The Family 19:47 Chapter Five: The Saxhorns 23:55 Chapter Six: The Chair 28:31 Chapter Seven: The Ledger at S Instruments of the Orchestra walks the modern orchestra one instrument at a time, in alphabetical order, told only from period sources that pass the season's two keys — the text printed by 1929, every maker gone by 1949. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, O and P are already told; the letters with no instrument wait for a possible second pass, and the season's rule holds as ever — a maker who fails the record does not reach the microphone, and no completeness is claimed. Next in the season: T — the Timpani. Music: opening and closing themes and the chapter separators are drawn from "Raga at Dawn 2"; a continuous instrumental bed from "Cliffs of Breaking Ice" runs under the narration — house music pool. Source: Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st edition (1879–1890), the articles "Sax", "Saxhorn" and "Saxophone" — Wikisource / Internet Archive. Albert A. Stanley, Catalogue of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments (1918) — Internet Archive. KacheliTV — World Classics, Read Aloud.