Although two-keyed oboes continued to be made as late as 1820, it was around 1825 that a Viennese oboist of the court orchestra developed a 13-keyed instrument. Joseph Sellner’s development continued to be used in Germany throughout the nineteenth century, and is the basis of the modern Viennese instrument.

In France, instrument-makers pursued a different path. Henri Brod began manu­facturing oboes in 1839. His contemporary, Guillaume Tribert, was a member of a family of makers who developed the modern French oboe. In addition to differences in the workings of keys, the sound quality sought by French makers was different: they valued the warmth of sound less than German makers and thus pursued a more refined sound. Outside Vienna, it is now usually the French model that is used. Although there were experiments with a bass or baritone oboe in the eighteenth century, it was in the 1820s that a firm called Tribert began manufacturing the modern instrument. The tube was folded up like that of a bassoon, and the first straight baritone oboe was produced by F. Lore in 1889. Like the English horn, its reed is carried on a curved metal crook.

Styles & Forms | Late Romantic | Classical
Instruments | Heckelphone | Late Romantic | Classical