What is this instrument?! -- Ebay / Internet finds sticky
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@administrator The item was sold before I could look at the ad; but IF I saw the right picture, it would be a straightforward rotary tenor horn. Wagner tubas have their valves oriented left-handed.
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As I said - rotary tenor horn.
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I will stick my neck out here
I have seen many Tenor horns and they have a conventional shape
A Wagner tuba is not a tuba it is essentially a Tenor horn
The other Tenor horn instrument that has the same timbre and fills the same position in an orchestra as the Tenor horn is the Alto horn.
Both are pitched the same and have a similar appearance.
The Wagner tuba is a quite different instrument in appearance to either Tenor horn or Alto horn.
While both tenor horn and alto horn have a traditional appearance being roughly rectangular with the valves at one end and the bell is straight on both
The Wagner horn is an oddity, It is roughly elliptical in shape and the valves are set on the side of the instrument, has a bent bell tube and has the timbre and pitch of both Tenor and Alto horns.
Looking at this image the mouthpipe is on the other side of the bell tube from most Wagner tubas
I have found one image of a Wagner tuba with the mouthpipe similarly placed to this one.
It is named the Engelbert Schmid Wagner Tuba.
It appears to be then a sub class of Wagner tuba, and I believe barliman is right it is a rotary valve Tenor horn, but I also believe it is a Wagner tuba of the class Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba as administrator has suggested.
This is the kind of problem we encounter when creating an instrument that is a sub set of a sub class of a small group of instruments. The resulting instrument does not fit easily into any existing types.
I believe nobody who has posted is wrong we just have a very unusual and very confusing instrument here.
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The main distinction of the Wagner tuba is that it is in effect a bass French horn. Therefore, it is usually played by French horn players who need to use the valves as with a French horn, i.e. their left hand. The shape roughly resembles a rotary tenor horn except for he fact that it is a mirrored tenor horn. So anything that is played right-handed is a standard rotary alto or tenor horn (tenor horns are by far more frequent, as the Eb alto parts in Continental wind bands tend to be played by Eb bass trumpets), and anything left-handed (apart from very rare tenor horns custom-built for left-handed players) therefore almost certainly is a Wagner tuba.
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Unless I am mistaken, besides being left-handed, the Wagner Tuba takes a horn mouthpiece.
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@Vulgano-Brother You are perfectly right.
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This is a very interesting piece that speaks of the Wagner tuba, the Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba and the horn mouthpiece.
I note that the author mentions that the horn mouthpiece is not a good fit in the Wagner tuba, this is an extract of his piece
One thing that I realized very quickly was that the Houghton H3 mouthpiece I was currently using for my daily horn playing wasn’t ideal. The shank wasn’t a great fit for the tuba’s European receiver, and I felt that the small bore of the H3 was a bit confining. After trial and (lots of) error, I settled on an old Giardinelli B8 two-piece cup with an H1 rim. This is probably the largest mouthpiece that I’ve ever played professionally, and I couldn’t imagine it working for me on horn, but it is somehow pure magic on the Wagner tuba.
His conclusion is that the Engelbert Schmid Wagner tuba carries some differences to the Horn but there are many similarities, and they appear to be are a natural instrument for Horn players to double on.
This is the full article. It makes good reading.
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I bought this one too. I guess I like oddities.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250311145325/https://vmcollectables.com/product/horn-gebr-alexander/
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@administrator That is not an oddity - these things are still played in many European wind bands when they don't have French horn players...
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@barliman2001 said in What is this instrument?! -- Ebay / Internet finds sticky:
@administrator That is not an oddity - these things are still played in many European wind bands when they don't have French horn players...
It seems like it may sound close to a posthorn, or corno da caccia?
It's a real oddity in the USA!
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@administrator It's just an alto horn in French horn shape with a trumpet shank receiver and right-handed.
