ITEA Journal Volume 48 Number 3 (Spring 2021)

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Adolphe Sax and the World's Largest Tuba
By Dave Detwiler

For over three years now, I have been exploring the wonderful world of giant tubas because, well, why not?! Tubas are already the largest brass horns used in a band or orchestra, but over the years some instrument makers have felt compelled to create massive one-offs-not because they would be a useful addition to a professional ensemble, but for the sheer spectacle of it!

An excellent case in point would be the recently restored Harvard Tuba, a fully functional instrument built by F. Besson and Co., in 1889, to top off an immense display at the Exposition Universelle in Paris that year. Originally dubbed "La Prodigieuse," meaning "The Prodigious One," it stands an imposing 6 feet 11 inches tall, with a bell diameter of 31.5 inches, and weighs a whopping 88 pounds! [1] But, as it turns out, it's not even close to being the world's largest tuba.

And that begs the question, Which oversized bass horn can rightly claim that title?

Clifford Bevan, in his authoritative article on the "Tuba" in The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, comments that "very large sub-bass and 'subcontrabass' tubas have occasionally been made [and then he mentions three examples] . . . , but it is not certain which of them has the dubious distinction of being the largest tuba in the world, as one instrument might have a greater length of tubing while another might have a larger bell or a greater volume of tubing." [2]

Now, however, after three years of hunting down these impressive monsters (and so far, I have confirmed ten subcontrabass tubas), I think I may have gotten to the bottom of it, that is, which one deserves this so-called "dubious distinction."

Figure 1 - Sax's display case, and giant horns, at the Paris Exposition of 1867 (public domain)

Those can't be real-right?!

Early on in my research, I came across a curious lithograph from 1867 with the caption, "International Exposition-Musical instruments exhibited by Mr. Adolphe Sax"[3] (see Figure 1). As you can see, on either side of Sax's fabulous display case is a ridiculously oversized tuba that, to me, seemed more like a playful exaggeration than anything that might have actually existed.

Consider the shoulder-borne one on the left-wouldn't that essentially crush the player with its weight?! Sax did make horns with that exact design (technically a Saxtuba, which is similar to a helicon bass, but with the instrument resting on the right shoulder), but this monstrous version would surely be unwieldly after a few seconds. Plus, what would have been the point of such an oppressive and impractical instrument?

And what about the horn on the right-the one that looks like a standard tuba, except being, what, about 10 feet tall? Did Sax actually build an instrument that big? If he did, you would think the article that accompanied the image would mention something about it, but it doesn't. The closest we get is the last line, which says, "With a man like that, one is never out of surprises." [4] Was this monster one of Sax's surprises that year? It appeared not, as I was unable to find any mention of such a beast elsewhere, much less a reliable image of it.

That is, until recently.

Figure 2 - Sax's 52-foot E-flat Saxhorn Bourdon, 1878 or later (AIAS Dinant - family bequest)

From time to time, those who know of my research interests-often through my blog-send me relevant tips or files, and that occurred a few months ago. Timothée Reyrolle, a Frenchman who repairs brass instruments in Oslo, Norway, alerted me to a photograph in Jean-Pierre Rorive's 2014 book on Adolphe Sax that confirms that "the lithograph does not exaggerate!" [5] (see Figure 2). When I saw the image, I was utterly dumbfounded!

Indeed, far from being a cartoon, the horn in the lithograph is a dead ringer, in both size and layout, for the gigantic instrument in the photograph. If we assume the man standing next to it is about 5 feet 6 inches tall (average for that time period), the tuba would be what we guessed-about 10 feet tall. And using these numbers to measure the bugle of the horn before it enters the valve cluster, which consists of three large loops, we end up with what is almost certainly a 52-foot E-flat subcontrabass instrument. Sax himself called it a Saxhorn bourdon, with "bourdon" evoking "the great deep-toned, booming 'big bell' of cathedrals."[6] Could this be the largest tuba ever built?

Further, according to a number of musicologists that I consulted (more on a few of them shortly), the photograph was most likely taken in Sax's workshop on rue de Dunkerque, Paris. This is where Sax moved in 1878, at the age of sixty-four, following his third bankruptcy as a business owner, after having enjoyed his much larger establishment on rue Saint-Georges for the previous forty-six years (see Figure 3). Why would the aging inventor take that enormous instrument with him when he was downsizing?

Figure 3 - Exterior of Sax's establishment on rue Saint-Georges, Paris, mid-1800s (public domain)

Bidding on the bourdon

As it turns out, Sax didn't take the horn with him-at least initially. Rather, he sold his impressive Saxhorn bourdon at auction in December 1877, along with 466 other instruments in his private collection, as a way to rebound from bankruptcy. Before delving into that story, it's worth pausing for just a moment to remember who we're talking about here.

Adolphe Sax, who was born Antoine-Joseph Sax in Dinant, Belgium in 1814, is best remembered for inventing the Saxophone, which he patented in 1846, a mere three years after setting up shop in Paris. By then, however, he had already created a family of Saxhorns, as well as Saxotrombas, and eventually added Saxtubas to the mix. As these instruments reveal, Sax was clearly making a name for himself, which led one of his earliest biographers to note that "a man of such inventive power naturally excited much jealousy and ill-feeling among those whose business suffered from his discoveries." [7]

But the suffering went both ways. As a more recent biographer put it, "his inventive talent was tremendous; but his business acumen certainly less so." More specifically, "he attracted both violent partisans and bitter enemies. It seems that he was of a somewhat quarrelsome, certainly litigious temperament, and through excessive self-esteem may have brought on himself some of the troubles that marked his later years." [8] Indeed, in late 1877, those "troubles" forced Sax to auction off his private collection of instruments that had taken him the previous forty years to amass.

Figure 4 - Inside Sax's establishment on rue Saint-Georges, 1864 (public domain)

The auction took place in the famed Hôtel Drouot, from December 3-6, with Gustave Carré presiding over the bidding. The catalog that was prepared for the occasion describes instrument number 200 as a "Bourdon Saxhorn (drone or sub-contrabass), with three valves, a length of 17 metres [about 56 feet] without the use of additional valve tubes, bell size - 1 metre [about 39 inches], Ad. Sax, Paris." [9] Newspaper reports were a bit more animated in their description of the horn, with one calling it "a prodigious affair," and offering this mental image: "To give an idea of this enormous thing, it may be added that four men can easily stand together in its tube!"[10]

But the auction catalog also clarified that "this instrument was produced by Mr. Sax in order to prove that men of a short height can still easily play large instruments, and that it is not the metal which gives the sound and timbre."[11] While that revelation is helpful for us, the auction itself was ultimately unhelpful for Sax. Here's a portion of the official report from the Revue De France for that year:

On December 4, the instrumental museum of Mr. Sax, the well-known inventor to whom musical art owes such precious discoveries, was sold. The work of more than forty years of patient and enlightened research, it included no less than 467 different models belonging to all eras and all countries. . . . It only sold, in three shifts, for the sum of 12,060 francs, barely a quarter of its value. . . . The famous saxhorn-bourdon, 17 meters in length, [sold for a mere] 410 francs. [12]

This is stunning news! In 1877, 410 francs was equal to about 82 U.S. dollars, which translates into about 1,870 dollars today-barely enough to buy a decent entry-level tuba. [13]

Figure 5 - Sax's display case at the London Exposition of 1862 (public domain)

Where did the monster go?

What we aren't told in the report is exactly who went home with this ridiculously large, but surprisingly affordable, piece of history. However, five years after the auction, the original Grove Dictionary claimed that the majority of Sax's instruments "were bought by the Museum of the Paris Conservatoire, the Musée Instrumental of Brussels, and M. Cesar Snoeck of Renaix, a wealthy Belgian collector."[14] Snoeck, of course, is long gone, but the two museums remain, so I reached out to each of them to see what I could learn.

Géry Dumoulin, the curator for wind and percussion instruments at the Musée des instruments de musique (MIM) in Brussels, was the first to respond: "The MIM indeed acquired, through its first curator, Victor-Charles Mahillon, more than thirty instruments from Adolphe Sax's collection. But there were more than three buyers, as at least thirteen are clearly identified. The Saxhorn bourdon seems to have been sold for 410 francs, but the name of the buyer is not known." [15] So, the historic monster didn't end up in that museum.

A week later, I received an enthusiastic email from Thierry Maniguet, the curator of the Musée de la musique in Paris, who wrote, "Your question about what could have become of this incredible 52ft saxhorn bourdon is very challenging. I have done some research in the past along the same lines, but unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with a satisfactory answer."[16] However, Maniguet did have an educated guess as to who bought the instrument, based on the original purchase log from the auction, of which he had an image. Here's what he shared with me:

Figure 6 - Sax's 26-foot E-flat Saxhorn Bourdon, built in 1855 (Henri Selmer, Paris)

A bourdon saxhorn was indeed sold under the number 200, at an auction held in Paris on December 1877 the 5^th. Unfortunately this instrument was not sold to our museum but to a certain M. Bourgaud for some 410 francs (see attachment). This person, who is believed to be the music historian Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, bought 54 instruments during this sale, being the second most important buyer after the Musée du conservatoire (today musée de la musique in the Philharmonie de Paris), which bought 58 instruments.

The problem, of course, is that the one and only photograph we have of this gigantic instrument, as noted earlier, is apparently from after the auction (and possibly years later), but it is standing proudly in Sax's workshop. According to Maniguet, this either means that "the buyer Bourgaud didn't take possession of the instrument (perhaps it was too big?)" or "he sold it back to Sax" at some later point. [17] We simply don't know.

What we do know, unfortunately, is that this monstrous treasure hasn't been seen in a very long time. "My guess," writes Maniguet, "is that, as the business was going so bad in the end of the 1880s, Sax had to get rid of the instrument before (or when) moving from rue de Dunkerque." He then speculates that "maybe he had to re-use the huge amount of brass?" [18]

The bottom line, as far as we can tell, is that this massive monster didn't outlive its maker-and Sax died in 1894. But can we perhaps discover when it was created?

Figure 7 - Featured in Le Charivari, October 28, 1855 (public domain)

On the street and in the shadows

We have already seen, from the spectacular lithograph discussed above (again, see Figure 1), that the giant Saxhorn bourdon goes back to at least the Exposition Universelle of 1867 in Paris. Sax was the musical star of that show, so to speak, winning "the only grand prize which [was] awarded to the musical instrument makers of the whole world," [19] and his towering tuba didn't escape the notice of the press, contrary to what I had first thought.

One French newspaper shared this colorful account from the day Sax's giant was removed from the exhibition hall and carted home:

Yesterday a crowd surrounded, on the Quai d'Orsay, a musical instrument of colossal proportions, if there ever was one, which was there momentarily deposited while waiting for the vehicle expressly ordered to come and pick it up. . . . This instrument, all in brass, is a saxhorn bourdon, two octaves lower, it is said, than the low bass B-flat used in military music. . . . The weight of this monster instrument is 135 kilograms, and its length with all branches folded, is, from the bell to the breech [i.e., the bottom bow], about 4 meters. . . . The instrument stands upright on its own; the man who plays it places himself in the outer branches. . . . When the huge instrument was loaded onto the vehicle, one of the workers, like a man under a [church] bell, moved into its bell to better hold it, and, long followed by the curious who gathered in its path, the prodigious saxhorn slowly moved towards its destination. [20]

Figure 8 - Featured in Le Charivari, November 4, 1855 (public domain)

"Colossal proportions" indeed! While we can't be certain of its accuracy, let the reported weight of this monster sink in: 135 kilograms, which is 298 pounds!

But sightings of this massive horn go back even earlier than 1867. Yet another fascinating lithograph related to Adolphe Sax appeared in mid-1864 (see Figure 4). [21] The caption at the bottom reads, "Audition of new instruments by Sax (Sax Hall, Rue Saint-Georges)," but lurking in the shadows of Sax's expansive showroom in Paris, to the left of the giant instrument display case, is our monster, leaning up against the wall.

But an even more fascinating lithograph appeared a few years earlier , revealing what might be that same display case full of Sax's creations from the 1862 International Exposition in London (see Figure 5).[22] What first caught my eye was the huge circular Saxtuba that is hanging in the upper left of the case (could it be the one featured in the 1867 lithograph?). But in the back row are no less than three oversized Saxhorns. The first one, on the left, with its unbelievably wide bell (perhaps a bit exaggerated by the artist), is almost certainly our monster.

In his report on the London Exposition, Pontécoulant, one of the great musicologists of that era, had this to say about Sax's colossal creation:

We have especially noticed the saxhorn bourdon which by its size caused general astonishment. The great instrument, which is not less than seventeen meters long by sixty centimeters in diameter at the end of the tube, below the bell [so apparently not the diameter of the bell itself], was mainly built by Mr. Adolphe Sax to demonstrate that the biggest current instruments (saxhorns and saxotrombas) do not in any way tire the lungs so much, as is generally mistakenly believed. [23]

Once again we get a brief explanation as to why Sax took the time and trouble to build such a beast. But is 1862 the year that it first appeared? It seems not.

Figure 9 - Featured in Le Charivari, November 4, 1855 (public domain)

See you in the funny papers!

Eugenia Mitroulia, in her extensive study of Adolphe Sax and his Saxhorns, has confirmed that a "bourdon saxhorn in 26-ft E-flat was made by Sax in 1855 for that year's Paris International Exhibition. Such an instrument survives in the Henri Selmer collection in Paris." [24] While clearly smaller than the monster we've been focusing on, it is still an impressive horn (see Figure 6)-and is probably one of the oversized Saxhorns seen in the 1862 lithograph. It stands about 6 feet tall, with a bell diameter of 22 inches.

However, a number of illustrations that were published during the 1855 Exhibition poke fun at Sax's giant tuba, and I'm wondering, based on the size of the instrument shown in these sketches, if the artist is perhaps referring to the larger Saxhorn bourdon that we have been considering. For example, one cartoon shows the exhibition hall having the roof blown off by a monstrous tuba, and says, "What will inevitably happen the day Mr. Sax blows a little too hard in his new trumpet" (see Figure 7). [25] Another has the caption, "The audience visiting Mr. Sax's trumpet," and the drawing clearly evokes the 52-foot E-flat monster more than the 26-foot E-flat bourdon (see Figure 8).[26] Yet another reads, "The illustrious Rossini taking Mr. Sax's trumpet for a steam engine," and shows the great composer running away, in a panic, from a giant tuba twice his size (see Figure 9)! [27]

Figure 10 - Clifford Bevan playing the Horniman Besson in 2001 (photographer unknown)

Add to that evidence the following insight from Francois-Joseph Fétis, one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and we have even more reason to believe that Sax's gigantic horn was in Paris that year. In his 1855 report, Fétis wrote of "[dual] monsters placed at the Exhibition by Mr. Sax and Mr. Besson," and then he registered his clear disapproval of these apparently similar instruments of unusual size:

Not to mention the ridiculous aspect of these polyphemes [i.e., giants] of sonority, we must dismiss these eccentricities as bad things from the point of view of art. A man of average height would find accommodation conveniently in the body of the enormous machine that Mr. Besson put on display, and which he gave the name of trombotonar, no less barbarous than the noises that come out of its tube. [28]

Figure 11 - Sax's display case at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London (Royal Collection Trust)

The trombotonar-a name which apparently has no prior meaning-was Gustave-Auguste Besson's version of a subcontrabass tuba. There are not many references to this enigmatic instrument, but according to the earliest known description, it was a "giant piston bugle, not less than three meters high and one meter wide, taken at the diameter of its bell." [29] Significantly, these measurements are virtually identical to Sax's massive Saxhorn bourdon-meaning, there were two 10-foot-tall tubas at the Exhibition! Sadly, no reliable image of Besson's beast has yet been found, but an 1893 report says that it was fully functional, and adds that it served as the model for "the immense bombardon exhibited in front of the [Besson] premises" at Euston Road in London. [30] That giant tuba, which is just for show, as it has dummy valves, can be seen today at the Horniman Museum (see Figure 10).

So, is 1855 the birth year for both the trombotonar and the Saxhorn bourdon? Apparently not. The latter seems to go back even earlier. [31]

Bourdons at the Crystal Palace

The Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the spectacular Crystal Palace, is where we find the earliest reference to an oversized Saxhorn. According to a Paris newspaper that reported on the instruments Sax was preparing to take with him to London, there was a "saxhorn-bourdon which, without counting all its folds, will not be less than eight to nine feet high, and whose bell forms an opening six feet in circumference [which is 23 inches in diameter]."[32] This description suggests that it is not our horn, but rather the taller of two slender Saxhorns that we can barely see in the very back left of Sax's display case at the Exhibition (see Figure 11).

That same report identified those horns as being "twenty-four and thirty-three feet in length," which probably means they were a 26-foot E-flat contrabass and a 36-foot B-flat subcontrabass-both being elongated to make them taller than normal, and the latter being labeled a "saxhorn-bourdon." But another report revealed an even larger instrument bearing that name, referring to it as "a kind of monster ophicleide, called the Sax-horn bourdon, about ten feet high, and with forty-eight feet development of tube," [33] which sounds like our 52-foot E-flat beast.

Unfortunately, no photo of this giant tuba in 1851 has yet been found, but there is sufficient reason to believe that it was in London that year. Yet another report vividly spoke of "the Sax-horn bourdon, three meters high, forty-eight feet of tube development, monster instrument, the last of the family invented by the famous Belgian, a real trumpet of Jericho, which one would think destined to the breath of some gigantic Boreas," [34] calling to mind the Greek god of the north wind! By all accounts, this towering tuba was in a class by itself-at least until Besson produced his trombotonar four years later.

"This one is the giant bass"

And this brings us back to our original question: Which oversized bass horn can rightly claim the title of "world's largest tuba"? If we knew a bit more about the trombotonar, we might call it a tie, but from our analysis above, it makes sense to give the nod to Adolphe Sax's 52-foot E-flat Saxhorn bourdon (see Figure 12), apparently built in 1851 to prove that a massive instrument, if built with care and precision, could be played by anyone. And, okay, perhaps the ambitious inventor also just wanted to attract people to his booth at the Crystal Palace!

A decade later, in 1861, Pontécoulant reflected on Sax's expertly crafted 10-foot-tall monster, so I'll give the celebrated musicologist the last official word. As he looked back on the Great Exhibition, he came to this conclusion about the instrument: "This one is the giant bass. At its appearance, one would think that no human lung could be sufficient for the insufflation necessary for this gigantic instrument; yet its proportions are so well regulated, its contours so soft, the play of its pistons is so easy, that it could easily be played before the jury of the exhibition by a person who had never touched it." [35]

I would have gladly volunteered to prove him right!

Figure 12 - Ranking Known Subcontrabass Tubas by Size [36]

Rank	Year	Maker	Name	Key	Valves	Height	Weight	Bell Dia.	Fully Functional?
1	1851	Adolphe Sax	Giant Saxhorn Bourdon	52 ft Eb	3 piston	~10 ft	298 lbs	39-40 in	Yes
2	1855	Gustave Besson	Trombotonar	52 ft Eb	3 piston	~10 ft	?	39-40 in	Yes
3	1912?	Bohland & Fuchs	Riesen-Kontrabass	36 ft Bb	4 rotary	7 ft 10.5 in	125 lbs	45 in	Yes?
4	1912	Bohland & Fuchs	Big Carl	36 ft Bb	3 dummy	7 ft 9 in	140 lbs?	40.5 in	No
5	1912	Bohland & Fuchs	Big Carl's Twin	36 ft Bb	3 dummy	7 ft 9 in	140 lbs?	40.5 in	No
6	1889	F. Besson & Co.	Harvard Tuba	36 ft Bb	3 piston	6 ft 11 in	88 lbs	31.5 in	Yes
7	2010	Hartmut Geilert	Markneukirchen Riesentuba	36 ft Bb	4 rotary	6 ft 9 in	110 lbs	34.6 in	Yes
8	Late 1800s?	Besson & Co.	Horniman Besson	36 ft Bb	3 dummy	6 ft 6 in	112 lbs	32 in	No
9	1851	Adolphe Sax	Slender Saxhorn Bourdon	36 ft Bb	3 piston	8-9 ft	?	23 in	Yes
10	1899	Rudolph Sander	Hoffnung Tuba	32 ft C	3 rotary	5 ft 2 in	~80 lbs	39.5 in	Yes

Dave Detwiler is part of the pastoral team of LCBC ("Lives Changed By Christ"), a multi-site church in eastern Pennsylvania. He is also a longtime tuba player who gets excited about the history of this often-maligned instrument. He can be reached at tubapastor@gmail.com.

Special thanks to the Association Internationale Adolphe Sax, Clifford Bevan, Géry Dumoulin, Thierry Maniguet, Eugenia Mitroulia, Ryan Moyer, Arnold Myers, Timothée Reyrolle, Matt Walters, and Douglas Yeo.

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