Duo No. 8 from Mozart's set of 12 Duos for Two Horns, K. 487/496a, performed here on octavin and serpent, in F major rather than the original C major.
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The instruments:
Octavin in B-flat. Unmarked, but probably made by Oscar Adler sometime in the first decades of the 20th century. The octavin is a single-reed instrument with a folded conical bore, vaguely in the shape of the boot joint of a bassoon. It was patented by Oscar Adler and Hermann Jordan in 1893, seemingly intended both as a German answer to the French saxophone and an easy-to-learn replacement for the oboe in bands. The fingering system is somewhere between an Albert-system clarinet and a military-system oboe. Octavins never seem to have caught on, although they saw some use in early 20th-century woodwind doubler novelty acts.
Serpent in C, two keys. Made in 2001 by Keith Rogers. The serpent, like its smaller and older relative the cornetto, combines a cupped brass-style mouthpiece with woodwind-style finger holes. It dates from the late Renaissance or early Baroque era (c. 1600), and was initially used to play bass lines to accompany church choirs. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was sometimes used in orchestras, harmonie ensembles, and military bands, and composers such as Mozart, Haydn, Berlioz, and Wagner wrote parts for it. By the mid-19th century, it had largely been replaced, first by the keyed ophicleide, and then by the valved tuba.
15 сен 2024
