But
playing with wide bore tubas and their kindred is not advantageous to
this noble instrument.
The serpent has been already mentioned as the bass of the obsolete
zinken or wooden cornets, straight or curved, with cupped mouthpiece.
It gained its serpentine form from the facility given thereby to the
player to cover the six holes with his fingers. In course of time keys
were added to it, and when changed into a bassoon shape its name
changed to the Russian bass horn or basson Russe. A Parisian
instrument maker, Halary, in 1817, made this a complete instrument,
after the manner of the keyed bugle of Halliday, and producing it in
brass called it the ophicleide, from two Greek words meaning serpent
and keys--keyed serpent--although it was more like a keyed bass bugle.
The wooden serpent has gone out of use in military bands within
recollection, the ophicleide from orchestras only recently. It has
been superseded by the development of the valved tubas. The euphonium
and bombardon, the basses of the important family of saxhorns, now
completely cover the ground of bass wind instrument music. The keyed
bugle, invented by Joseph Halliday, bandmaster of the Cavan militia,
in 1810, may be regarded as the prototype of all these instruments,
excepting that the keys have been entirely replaced by the valve
system, an almost contemporary invention by Stoelzel and Blumel, in
Prussia, in 1815.
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