Introducing the Ophicleide 

A lot of ophicleide videos on youtube are by people who don't know how to play it. It's so nice to hear someone knowing what they are doing playing one of these.

I've never heard one before, or even heard OF an ophiclide before. Thanks for the education! 🎶🥰🎵🎶

Now I'd love to see a video on the Tenor Cornett! OAE make this video happen please!

Sound so much more refined than the serpent. I could see this fitting into a modern orchestra for solos with a slightly different timbre, as Euphonium, Wagner Tuba, Saxophone etc. get their ocasional outings.

This is a bit tangential, but the name "Ophicleide" has been used on pipe organs to denote a powerful reed stop (brass-like sound) since the installation of the Birmingham Town Hall organ by William Hill in 1835. The loudest organ stop in the world at 130 dB is the "Grand Ophicleide" found in the Boardwalk Hall Organ in Atlantic City, NJ. That stop borrows the name only; it has extraordinary éclat and in no way mimics the timbre of this lovely, mellow instrument.

A lovely soft tone.

I'm glad you mentioned the euphonium because I thought both the serpent and the ophicleide reminded me of that sound. However, I think this is warmer and softer.

Please ask Mr Kershaw to do more videos on the ophicleide. This was wonderful

It's very like a tuba and a bassoon with a dash of rounded tenor sax thrown in for good measure.

what a handsome player

Thank you. What a beauty! I just saw the name occasionally in proms programme booklets (Berlioz was always spectacular) but, like many, I was happy to know it was there and not be too curious about which it was in the masterful scoring.

The weaker notes in the cross fingering make it sound incredibly bassoon like. What a wonderful instrument

For some reason the French thought it was very humorous to pose photographs of men in clerical cassocks playing these - often with a glass of wine nearby. Gallic humor can be impenetrable.

Awesome!

Seems like this would be good even in modern times for small groups of mostly string and woodwind instruments where it might be hard to regulate a modern brass instrument to a matching volume.

Wonderful, beautiful introduction to this instrument. Took me some time to get it to sound nice. Now I can’t put it down.

The instrument was invented in 1817 by French maker, Jean Hilaire Asté. Berlioz used it as an early example, in his Symphonie Fantastique, composed in 1830.

I love when y'all upload, hell yeah

This instrument should be brought back. It sounds very nice.

Right thumb held aloft rather than resting alongside it’s key, must be a performance reason , but visually looks like an RSI waiting to happen🙂👍

I couldn't find that excerpt in Ezio. Is it another version written with ophicleide in it, or is it something you just enjoy playing? I also love ophicleide and serpent :) keep doing more of these! Basson russe next?

The video I have waited for.

thre

The opicleide was the ancestor of the modern-day tuba.

The Ophicleide was also Adolph Sax´starting point, when he designed the Saxophone.

Ahhh lovely. And really interesting, too Thank you :)

What if bassoon and trombone had a baby

The eyebrows!!!

Nice sound

I'm glad to know that I've actually been pronouncing it correctly this whole time lol

How is it that the ophicleide was invented c. 1850, when Berlioz called for it on his Symphonie Fantastique in 1830?

You should contact Native Instruments Inc with a view to creating a professional sample library of this remarkable instrument.

Its like a brass bassoon alternative

Berlioz! 🤘

These things could also be played with a double reed like a bassoon.

So, voiced like a smaller chyeuba?

S Tier instrument

Typo in title

You don't answer… or really ask _why_ the ophicleide was superseded.

Pronunciation of the name probably wrong, as it is supposed to be Greek.