BASSOON

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 953 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BAR-BEC

BASSOON .)
The reform in the construction of the

flute

FLUTE

due to Theobald Boehm of Munich about 1840, a reform which principally consisted in the rational division of the tube by the position of the lateral holes, prompted Triebert to try to adapt the innovation to the oboes and bassoons; but he failed, because the application of the system denaturalized the timbre of the

instruments

INSTRUMENTS

, which it was necessary, before all things, to preserve, but further improvements made upon the same lines by Barret and later by Rudall Carte, have trans-formed the oboe into the most delicate and perfect of reed

instruments

INSTRUMENTS

. In 1856 a French bandmaster, M. Sarrus, thought out the construction of a family of brass instruments with conical tubes pierced at regular distances, which, by diminishing the length of the air column, has rendered a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of fundamental sounds easymore equal and free in timbre than that of the oboe family. Gautrot of Paris realized the inventor's idea, and, under the name of " sarrusophones," has created a complete family, from the soprarino in E flat to the contrabass in B flat, of which his firm preserves the monopoly.
In order to replace the old

double

-bassoon of

wood

, the firm of C. Mahillon, Brussels, produced in 1868, a reed contrabass of metal, since much used in orchestras and military bands. The first idea of this

instrument

INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumentum, from insincere, to build up, furnish, arrange, prepare)

goes back to 1839, and is attributed to Sch011nast & Son of Pressburg. It is a conical brass tube of very large proportions, with lateral holes placed as theory demands, in geometrical relation, with a

diameter

DIAMETER (from the Cr. &a, through, µErpov, measure)

almost equal to the section of the"tube at the point where the hole is cut. From this it results that for each sound one key only is required, and the seventeen keys give the player almost the facility of a keyboard. The compass written for this
contrabass is comprised between and (~t but sounds
an octave lower. See CONTRAFAGOTTO. (V. M. ; K. S.)
7 See Doppelmayr, Historische Nachrichten von Nurnbergischen Matematikern and Kiinstlern, Nurnberg, 1730.
8 See complete edition, vol. iii. No. 4.
2 Vol. xiii. No. 1.
10 A fine edition has been published with reproductions of the

original

ORIGINAL

sketches for the scenes and the full score by Adler in Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Oesterreich, Bd. iii. p. xxv.
u See Captain C. R. Day's Catalogue of the Musical Instruments exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition (London, 1891), p. 75, No. 151.
12 Ib. p. 75, No. 150.

End of Article: BASSOON

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BAR_BEC/BASSOON.html">
BASSOON
</a>

(Previous)
BASSOMPIERRE, FRANCOIS DE (1579-1646)

(Next)
BASSOON (Fr. basson; Ger. Fagott; Ital. fagotto)

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email