Octavin

From Oddwinds

The octavin (Category 1) is really odd.

It's a single reed woodwind instrument with a conical bore. It has roughly the same acoustical length as a soprano sax; but the octavin typically has a wood body, not metal, and it appears to have a smaller taper than the sax, or the tarogato, another wooden single reed conical bore instrument.

But what really makes the octavin odd is its shape. Normally (if 'normal' is really an applicable concept here) it's folded, with two parallel bores connected at the bottom -- like a bassoon. Now, that makes a good deal of sense in a bassoon, which would be cumbersomely long if straightened out. But for a soprano-sized instrument, why fold it? What were they thinking?

Anyway, imagine sawing all but the bottom 12 inches, roughly, off a bassoon, and sticking a tube with a clarinet mouthpiece into the top on one side and a sawed-off alto clarinet bell into the top on the other side, and that's about what an octavin looks like.

Apparently the weirdness of the folded design struck some instrument designer of the early 20th century, because there were a few straight octavins made. These look a lot like a clarinet at first glance, until you notice the conical shape. Because of the conical bore, the octavin (folded or not) overblows at the octave, so the key system is simpler than a clarinet's.

The octavin seems to have been invented around 1893. It's been attributed by some to Julius Jehring, but Oskar Adler and Hermann Jordan of Markneukirchen were the ones who patented it. One writer also mentions a bass octavin, an octave lower, but it's not clear any were ever made. See pictures list below, too, for what looks like a predecessor from 60 years earlier.

The octavin never caught on. The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments describes it as sounding similar to a soprano sax, but less pleasant.

'Octavin' is also the name of an organ stop, but this seems to be a completely unrelated usage.

[edit] Pictures

Clarinets gallery includes pictures of an octavin, and some description.

Stefan Gruschka's page: "ein Oktavin, eine Art Holzsaxophon, erfunden kurz vor 1900, das sich aber in der Praxis nicht durchsetzen konnte".

A Japanese page with an octavin picture.

Music Treasures:

Adler & CO, Markneukirchen octavin around 1900 (picture)

Contrabass Digest archive:

2001-11-28: Includes links to pictures of a straight octavin, comparing it to an oboe, a clarinet, a tárogáto, and a folded octavin.

Centre for Performance History Museum of Instruments, Catalogue Part I: Wind Instruments:

Octavin, Anonymous (?German), c. 1900 (picture and info).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

Alto bassoon by Wood & Ivy, about 1830 (picture and info). This is labelled a bassoon, but it's fitted with a single reed mouthpiece. Apparently this is the same thing as, or is related to, instruments called alto fagotto, (confusingly) tenoroon, and caledonica. "Caledonica" is the name used by William Meikle (no, not the horror author) for an instrument he invented in 1825; one is listed, along with two alto fagotti, in the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments. These instruments would seem to be closely related to the later octavin.