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OPHICLEIDE (Fr. ophicleide, basse d'h...
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See also:OPHICLEIDE (Fr. ophicleide, basse d'harmonie; Ger. Ophikleid; Ital. oficleide) , a See also:brass See also:wind See also:instrument having a See also:cup-shaped See also:mouthpiece and keys, in fact a See also:bass keyed-See also:bugle. The name (from Gr. is, See also:serpent, and KX ibes, keys), applied to it by Halary, the patentee of the instrument, is hardly a happy one, for there is nothing of the serpent about the ophicleide, which has the See also:bore of the bugle and also owes the See also:chromatic arrangement of the keys to a principle evolved by See also:Halliday for the bugle, to be explained later on. The ophicleide is almost perfect theoretically, for it combines the natural See also:harmonic See also:scale of the brass wind See also:instruments having cup-shaped mouthpieces, such as the See also:trumpet, with a See also:system of keys, twelve in number, one for each chromatic semitone of the scale; it is capable of absolutely accurate intonation. It consists of a wooden, or oftener brass, See also:tube with a conical bore having the same proportions as that of the bugle but not wide enough in proportion to its length to make the fundamental or first See also:note of the harmonic See also:series of much See also:practical use. The tube, theoretically 1 8 ft. See also:long, is doubled upon itself once, terminating at the narrow end in a tight coil, from which protrudes the straight piece known as the crook, which bears the cup-shaped mouthpiece; the wide end of the tube terminates in a See also:funnel-shaped See also:bell pointing upwards. The See also:production of See also:sound is effected in the ophicleide as in other instruments with cup- or funnel-shaped mouthpieces (see See also:HoRN). The lips stretched across the mouthpiece See also:act as vibrating reeds or as the vocal chords in the larynx. The breath of the performer, compressed by being forced through the narrow opening between the lips, sets the latter in vibration. The stream of See also:air, instead of proceeding into the cup in an even flow—in which See also:case there would be no sound--is converted into a series of pulsations by the trembling of the lips. On being thrown into communication with the See also:main stationary See also:column of air at the bottom of the cup, the pulsating stream generates " sound waves," each consisting of a See also:half See also:wave of expansion and of a half wave of See also:compression. On the frequency per second of the sound waves as they strike the See also:drum of the See also:ear depends the See also:pitch of the note, the acuteness of the sound varying in See also:direct proportion to the frequency. To ensure a higher frequency in the sound waves, their length must be decreased. Two things are necessary to bring this about without shortening the length of the tube: (I) the opening between the lips, fixed at each end by contact with the edges of 1 For an explanation of the difference between theory and practice in the length of the tubes of wind instruments, see See also:Victor Mahillon, as skilful See also:lighting of the See also:stage. Certainly See also:Strauss does not in Le See also:cor " (See also:Les instruments de musique au musee du See also:conservatoire Y royal de musique de Bruxelles, pt. ii. See also:Brussels and See also:London, 1907), his whole See also:time-limit of an See also:hour and three-quarters use as many pp. 27-29. See also:Mozart's See also:lesson of dramatic See also:movement has been better learnt than anything See also:peculiar to either See also:music or literature; for, while his libretti show how little that quality has to do with poetic merit, the whole See also:history of See also:Italian See also:opera from See also:Rossini to See also:Mascagni shows how little it has to do with See also:good music. On the other See also:hand, the musical coherence of the individual classical forms used in opera has caused many critics to See also:miss the real dramatic ground of some of the most important operatic conventions. The See also:chief instance of this is the repetition of words in arias and at climaxes, a See also:convention which we are over-ready to explain as a See also:device which prolongs situations and delays See also:action for the See also:sake of musical See also:design. But in the best classical examples the case is almost the See also:reverse, for the See also:aria does not, as we are See also:apt to suppose, represent a few words repeated so as to serve for a long piece of music. Without the music the See also:drama would have required a long speech in its See also:place; but the classical composer cannot See also:fit intelligible music to a long See also:string of different sentences, and so the librettist reduces the speech to See also:mere headlines and the composer supplies the eloquence. Herein lies the meaning of Mozart's rapid progress from vocal concertos like " Fuor del See also:mar" in Idomeneo and " Martern aller Arten " in See also:Die Entfiihrung to genuine musical speeches like " Non piel andrai " in See also:Figaro, in which the obvious capacity to See also:deal with a greater number of 'words is far less important than the naturalness and freedom with which the See also:pace of the declamation is varied—a freedom unsurpassed even in the Elektra of See also:Richard Strauss. With Wagnerian polyphony and continuity music became capable of treating words as they occur in See also:ordinary speech, and repetitions have accordingly become out of place except where they would be natural without music. But it is not here that the real gain in freedom of movement lies. That gain has been won, not by See also:Wagner's negative reforms alone, but by his See also:combination of negative reform with new depths of musical thought; and See also:modern opera is not more exempt than classical opera from the dangers of See also:artistic methods that have become facile and secure. If the libretto has the right dramatic movement, the modern composer need have no care beyond what is wanted to avoid interference with that movement. So long as the music arouses no obviously incompatible emotion and has no See also:breach of continuity, it may find perfect safety in being meaningless. The necessary stagecraft is indeed not See also:common, but neither is it musical. Critics and public will cheerfully agree in ascribing to the composer all the qualities of the dramatist; and three allusions in the music of one See also:scene to that of another will suffice to pass for a marvellous development of Wagnerian Leit-motif. Modern opera of genuine artistic significance ranges from the • See also:light See also:song-See also:play type admirably represented by Bizet's Carmen to the exclusively " atmospheric " See also:impressionism of See also:Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. Both these extremes are equally natural in effect, though diametrically opposite in method: for both types eliminate everything that would be inadmissible in ordinary drama. If we examine the libretto of Carmen as an ordinary play we shall find it to consist mainly of actual songs and dances, so that more than half of the music would be necessary even if it were not an opera at all. Debussy's opera differs from See also:Maeterlinck's play only in a few omissions such as would probably be made in ordinary non-musical performances. His musical method combines perfect Wagnerian continuity with so entire an See also:absence of Leit-motif that there are hardly three musical phrases in the whole opera that could be recognized if they recurred in fresh contexts. The highest conceivable development of Wagnerian continuity has been attained by Strauss in See also:Salome and Elektra; these operas being actually more perfect in dramatic movement than the See also:original plays of See also:Wilde and Hofmannsthal. But their use of Leit-motif, though obvious and impressive, is far less See also:developed than in Wagner; and she poly-phony, as distinguished from the brilliant instrumental technique, is, like that technique, devoted mainly to realistic and physically exciting effects that See also:crown the impression in much the same way
the mouthpiece, must be made narrower by greater tension; (2) the breath must be sent through the reduced See also:aperture in a more compressed See also:form and with greater force, so that the exciting current of air becomes more incisive. An exact proportion, not yet scientifically determined, evidently exists between the amount of pressure and the degree of tension, which is unconsciously regulated by the performer, excess of pressure in See also:pro-portion to the tension of the lips producing a crescendo by causing See also:amplitude of vibration instead of increased See also:speed.
When the fundamental note of a See also:pipe is produced, the tension of the lips and pressure of breath proportionally combined are at their minimum for that instrument. If both be doubled, a See also:node is formed half way up the pipe, and the column of air no longer vibrates as a whole, but as two See also:separate parts, each half the length of the tube, and the frequency of the sound waves is doubled in consequence. The practical result is the production of the second harmonic of the series an See also:octave above the fundamental. The formation of three nodes and therefore of three separate sound waves produces a note a twelfth above the fundamental, known as the third harmonic, and so on in mathematical ratio. This harmonic series forms the natural scale of the instrument, and is for the ophicleide the following:
(T) 2 3 Fundamental.
In some cases the fundamental is difficult to obtain, and the harmonics above the eighth are not used.
The ophicleide has in addition to its natural scale eleven or twelve lateral holes covered by keys, each of which, when successively opened, raises the pitch of the harmonic series a semitone, with the exception of the first, an open See also: The unsatisfactory timbre of the ophicleide led to its being superseded by the bass See also:tuba; but it seems a pity that an instrument so powerful, so easy to learn and understand, and capable of such accurate intonation, should have to be discarded. The See also:lower register is rough, but so powerful that it can easily sustain above it masses of brass harmonics; the See also:medium is coarse in See also:tone, and the upper See also:wild and unmusical.
Although a bass keyed-bugle, the ophicleide owes something of its origin to the application of keys to the serpent (q.v.), a wind instrument, the invention of which is generally attributed to Edme See also:Guillaume, See also:canon of See also:Auxerre, about 1590. The serpent remained in its See also:primitive form for nearly two centuries, and then only it was attempted to improve it by adding keys. It was a musician named Regibo,' belonging to the See also:orchestra of the See also: The instrument, which the inventor called
basse-trompette," was approved of as See also:early as 13th See also:November i8o6 by a See also:commission composed of professors of the See also:Paris See also:Con-
' Gerber, See also:Lexicon der Tonkiinstler (See also:Leipzig, 1790). 2 Lexikon, edition of 1812.
servatoire, but the patent bears the date 31st See also:December 1810. The
basse-trompette," which Frichot in his See also:specification had at first, in See also:imitation of the English basshorn, called " basse cor," was, like the English instrument, entirely of brass, and had, like it, six holes; it only differed in a more favourable disposition brought about by thecurvings of the tube, and by the application of four crooks which permitted the instrument to be tuned " in C See also:low pitch and C high pitch for military bands, in C # for churches, and in D for See also:concert use." The See also:close relationship between the two instruments suggests the question whether this was the Frichot who worked with Astor in London in 1800.
The first See also:idea of adding keys to instruments with cupped mouth-pieces, unprovided with lateral holes, with the aim of filling up some of the gaps between the notes of the harmonic scale, goes back, according to Gerber (Lexicon of 1790), to KSlbel, a hornplayer in the Russian imperial See also:band, about 1760. Anton Weidinger,3 See also:trumpeter in the See also:Austrian imperial band, improved upon this first See also:attempt, and applied it in 1800 to the trumpet. But the See also:honour belongs to See also:Joseph Halliday, bandmaster of the See also:Cavan See also:militia, of being the first to conceive, in 1810, the disposition of a certain number of keys along the tube, setting out from its lower extremity, with the idea of producing by their successive or simultaneous opening a chromatic scale throughout the extent of the instrument. The bugle-horn was the See also:object of his reform; the scale of which, he says, in the See also:preamble of his patent, " until my invention contained but five tones, viz.
r
_I My improvements on that -see
instrument are five keys, to be used by the performer according to the annexed scale, which, with its five original notes, render it capable of producing twenty-five separate tones in See also:regular progression." Fig. I represents the keyed bugle of Joseph Halliday.
It was not until 1815 that the use of the new instrument spread upon the Continent. We find in the See also:account-books of a Belgian maker, Tuerlinckx of Mechlin, that his first See also:supply of a bugle-horn bears the date of 25th See also: 1.—Keyed . He attained it, as we have just seen, Bugle. by the help of five keys. The principle once discovered, it became easy to extend it to instruments of the largest See also:size, of which the compass, as in the "basson russe," began with the fundamental sound. It was simply necessary to bind this fundamental to the next harmonic sound —a- by a larger number of keys. This was done in 1817 by See also:Jean Hilaire Aste, known as Halary, a professor of music and instru- ment-maker at Paris. We find the description of the instruments for which he sought a patent in the Rapport de l'Academie Royale See also:des See also:Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France, See also:meeting of the 19th of See also:July 1817. These instruments were three in number: (t) the clavi-tube, a keyed trumpet; (2) the quinti-tube, or quinti-clave; (3) the ophicleide, a keyed serpent. The clavitube was no other than the bugle-horn slightly modified in some details of construction, and reproduced in the different tonalities A5, F, E5, D, C, B5, A and A5. The quinti-tube had nearly the form of a bassoon, and was, in the first instance, armed with eight keys and constructed in two tonalities, F and E. This was the instrument afterwards named " See also:alto ophicleide." The ophicleide (fig. 2) had the same form as the quinti-tube. It was at first adjusted with nine or ten keys, and the number was carried on to twelve—each key FIG.2.—Ophicleide to give a semitone (additional patent of 16th of Halary. See also:August 1822). The ophicleide or bass of the See also:harmony was made in C and in Bb, the contra-bass in F and in Eb.' The announcement of Weidinger's invention of a Klappentrompete, or trumpet with keys, appears in the Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, November 1802), p. 158; and further accounts are given in See also:January 1803, p. 245, and 1815, p. 844. ' The See also:report of the Academie des Beaux-Arts on the subject of this invention shows a See also:strange misconception of it, which it is interesting to recall. " As to the two instruments which M. Halary designs 5 6 7 8 9 to u It is certain that from the point of view of invention Halary's labours had only secondary importance; but, if the principle of keyed chromatic instruments with cupped mouthpiece' goes back to Halliday, it was Halary's merit to know how to take See also:advantage of the principle in extending it to instruments of diverse tonalities, in grouping them in one single See also:family, that of the bugles, in so complete a manner that the improvements of modern manufacture have not widened its limits either in the See also:grave or the acute direction. Keyed chromatic wind instruments made their way rapidly; to their introduction into military full or brass bands we can date the regeneration of military music. After pistons had been invented some See also:forty years, instruments with keys could still reckon their partisans. Now these have utterly disappeared, and pistons or rotary cylinders remain See also:absolute masters of the situation. (V. M.; K. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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