The Basset horn, which has become the sensuously beautiful alto clarinet in E flat, is related to the clarinet in the same way that the cor Anglais is to the oboe.  Basset is equivalent to Baryton (there is a Basset flute figured in Praetorius), and this instrument appears to have been invented by one Horn, living at Passau, in Bavaria, about 1770.  His name given to the instrument has been mistranslated into Italian as Corno di Bassetto.  There is a bass clarinet employed with effect by Meyerbeer in the “Huguenots,” but the characteristic clarinet tone is less noticeable; it is, however, largely used in military bands.  The Basset horn had the deep compass of the bass clarinet which separates it from the present alto clarinet, although it was more like the alto in caliber.  The alto clarinet is also used in military bands; and probably what the Basset horn would have been written for is divided between the present bass and alto clarinets.

Preceding the invention of the sarrusophone, by which a perfected oboe was contrived in a brass instrument, a modified brass instrument, the saxophone, bearing a similar relation to the clarinet, was invented in 1846 by Sax, whose name will occur again and again in connection with important inventions in military band instruments.  The saxophone is played like the clarinet with the intervention of a beating reed, but is not cylindrical; it has a conical tube like the oboe.  The different shape of the column of air changes the first available harmonic obtained by overblowing to the octave instead of the twelfth; and also in consequence of the greater strength of the even harmonics, distinctly changing the tone quality.  The sarrusophone may fairly be regarded as an oboe or bassoon; but the saxophone is not so closely related to the clarinet.  There are four sizes of saxophone now made between high soprano and bass.  Starting from the fourth fundamental note, each key can be employed in the next higher octave, by the help of other two keys, which, being opened successively, set up a vibrating loop.  The saxophones, although difficult to play, fill an important place in the military music of France and Belgium, and have been employed with advantage in the French orchestra.  The fingering of all saxophones is that attributed to Boehm.

The cup shaped mouthpiece must now take the place of the reed in our attention.  Here the lips fit against a hollow cup shaped reservoir, and, acting as vibrating membranes, may be compared with the vocal chords of the larynx.  They have been described as acting as true reeds.  Each instrument in which such a mouthpiece is employed requires a slightly different form of it.  The French horn is the most important brass instrument in modern music.  It consists of a body of conical shape about seven feet long, without the crooks, ending in a large bell, which spreads out to a diameter of fifteen inches.  The crooks are fitted between the body and the mouthpiece;