This post features the Adolphe Sax stamp from Belgium in 1973. Among the rare music-themed stamps are the handful that are dedicated to musical instrument makers. Among these very rare finds is a stamp from Belgium celebrating their favorite son, the musical instrument maker Adolphe Sax. He was famous for many musical inventions, most famously, the saxophone.
Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph (known as Adolphe) Sax was born in 1814 in the town of Dinant, Belgium. He was the son of the wind instrument maker Charles-Joseph Sax. Adolphe was a talented musician, playing flute, clarinet, and studying voice. In addition, he showed promise at learning the craft of instrument-making from his father. At the age of 15 he entered his own instruments in an instrument making competition. He subsequently studied music at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels.
Adolphe also showed a penchant for innovation and invention, and after leaving conservatory, he began to experiment with new instrument designs. He received his first patent at the age of 24 for an improved bass clarinet design. In 1824, he moved permanently to Paris where he would continue his work as an instrument designer and builder.
In Paris, Sax began working on a set of matched valve brass instruments. Berlioz was enamored with these instruments and in 1844 wrote a piece for such a set. Sax dubbed the new instruments “saxhorns” (he obviously liked naming things after himself). The horns were a matched set of brass instruments ranging from bass to treble and were a great success. Sax also made instruments he called “saxotrombas.” These brass instruments had a narrower bore and created a brighter sound than saxhorns. However, they didn’t find as much success.
Scott # BE 847
The Saxophone
In 1846, Sax patented his famous saxophones. The invention had a reed (like a clarinet) and fingering like a woodwind, which allowed for easy chromatic playing, but the loud warm sound of brass instruments. The instrument was soon in use in military bands and, later, in some orchestral literature. The saxophone won him a certain level of recognition during his lifetime and he went on to teach at the Paris Conservatory. However, a series of lawsuits over patent rights left him penniless when he died in 1894.
The saxophone, now understood as his greatest invention, would not even find great success until much later in the twentieth century, when jazz musicians adopted it in great numbers. Now, it can be heard in classical music – mostly as a solo instrument although occasionally in the orchestra, in bands, and in rock & roll, however even in the twenty-first century it is most often used and associated with jazz.
Later Notoriety
In the twentieth century, as the instrument gained fame, the country of Belgium began to lay claim to Sax as a favorite son, even as he spent most of his professional life in Paris. They issued the above postage stamp in 1973, and in 1995 introduced a 200 franc banknote that also featured the saxophone with the portrait of Adolphe Sax.
In 2014, the musical world celebrated the bicentennial of Adolphe Sax’s birth. The Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels hosted an international loan exhibition Sax200 to explore his unusual inventions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also had an exhibition featuring unusual Sax instruments from their collection called Celebrating Sax: Instruments and Innovation.
Although the saxophone is most associated with jazz music, Adolphe Sax never would have heard jazz. His intention was for it to be a classical instrument and there are still many classical saxophonists who play it. Here is a movement from the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet performing at The Metropolitan Museum in 2014.
