Sax, Charles Joseph (EN)

Sax Charles Joseph, *1 February 1790 Dinant, †26 April 1865 Paris, a Belgian inventor and manufacturer of wind instruments, self-taught; in his youth, he played the serpent and was an amateur builder of wind instruments. After several years of work as a cabinet maker and mechanic in Dinant and later in Ghent, he moved to Brussels in 1815, where he founded a factory producing serpents, flutes, clarinets and bassoons. In 1818, he received the title of a builder of the royal court, and in 1819, he became the main supplier of instruments for the Dutch military bands. Having obtained government loans, in 1822, he began producing brass instruments. He also engaged in acoustic research, and in 1824, he improved the omnitonic horn (“cor omnitonique”) invented in 1815 by J. B. Dupont, which enabled playing in all keys (patent 1846). At the national exhibition in 1835, he presented 25 brass and 16 wooden instruments, receiving a gold medal. In 1842, he patented further changes in the construction of the flute and bassoon. He also introduced innovations in the construction of the harp, guitar and piano (patent 1851). In 1853, he moved to Paris, where his son Antoine Joseph had been working for 11 years, and founded a piano factory there (“Société pianos SAX”), which went bankrupt after two years. Later, he managed the production of saxophones in his son’s factory.