: Why are saxophones not commonly included in orchestras?

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: Why are saxophones not commonly included in orchestras?

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Saxophones were invented long after most of the classical musical pieces had already been written. And even after saxophones were invented it took a few decades for it to take off so most music was not written for saxophones. The popularity of saxophone coincided with the introduction of jazz music.

But you may still see some orchestras incorporate saxophones into them. Either playing more modern music or rewriting some of the classical music to fit the saxophone. Most commonly the saxophone would replace the clarinet. Both instruments sound almost the same and the clarinet became popular around the time of Mozart and was standard in orchestras by the time Beethoven wrote most of his music. So a saxophone player can easily fit into an orchestra and play the clarinet parts. And this is not too uncommon for teaching orchestras as the saxophone is usually easier to learn then the clarinet.

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