The Voice of Sax

by Sigurd Raschèr

When Adolphe Sax set out to construct a new wind instrument, it was the concept of a tone that hitherto did not exist that fired his will. He clearly knew what characteristics this new tone must have. It should be capable of binding the existing tones into a more homogenous unity. Only a few years after his “dream” had become a tangible–and audible–reality, he documented his aims in concise words. Few were his remarks about the new instrument’s technical possibilities; he did however, draw his friends’ attention to the components (including the mouthpiece) that were needed to produce the new tone. It was precisely this new tone, which was praised and admired by the great musicians and critics of his days; its even smoothness, its flexibility, its unequalled expressivity. No one thought of using the new instrument for anything but the noblest musical purposes, be it single or in groups. Barely a few years after the saxophone’s “birth certificate” was issued by Hector Berlioz, a quartet as well as an ensemble was thought of and actually heard. That is, as soon as the various sizes of saxophones had been made by Adolphe Sax. 

Two facts account for the cohesive sound of such groups; first, the uniquely balanced overtone spectrum of the saxophone; second, the correlation of these overtones in octaves and fifths, as produced by instruments in F & C, or in E♭ & B♭. It is therefore entirely consistent that a German critic wrote of the saxophone quartet: “It is the most homogeneous sound imaginable next to a string quartet. The radiance of sound in its compact depth and fullness, its flexibility, its sheen and its kaleidoscopically changing mixtures of overtones bewitch the listener again and again….(Heidelberg, January 1971)” This is exactly what Georges Kastner predicted one hundred twenty-seven years earlier: “The saxophone is called to a high destiny through the beauty of its timbre.”