In Germany a rotary valve, a
kind of stop cock, is preferred to the piston. It is said to give
greater freedom of execution, the closeness of the shake being its
best point, but is more expensive and liable to derangement. The
invention of M. Adolphe Sax, of a single ascending piston in place of
a group of descending ones, by which the tube is shortened instead of
lengthened, met, for a time, with influential support. It is suitable
for both conical and cylindrical instruments, and has six valves,
which are always used independently. However, practical difficulties
have interfered with its success. With any valve system, however, a
difficulty with the French horn is its great variation in length by
crooks, inimical to the principle of the valve system, which relies
upon an adjustment by aliquot parts. It will, however, be seen that
the invention of valves has, by transforming and extending wind
instruments, so as to become chromatic, given many advantages to the
composer. Yet it must, at the same time, be conceded, in spite of the
increasing favor shown for valve instruments, that the tone must issue
more freely, and with more purity and beauty, from a simple tube than
from tubes with joinings and other complications, that interfere with
the regularity and smoothness of vibration, and, by mechanical
facilities, tend to promote a dull uniformity of tone quality.
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