: Why are saxophones not commonly included in orchestras?
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It’s too new, being invented in the 1840s. The classical period was from 1750 and 1820. So must of the orchestral music people commonly listen to predates the saxophone.
This link will do a better job explaining than I can.
https://www.spartanburgphilharmonic.org/blog-entries/2018/8/27/why-is-the-saxophone-a-stranger-to-the-symphony#:~:text=The%20composers%20and%20conductors%20were,is%20a%20very%20contentious%20issue.
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.
Saxophones didn’t exist at the time when a lot of orchestral music was written. They were first invented in 1846 and, despite their resemblance to classic orchestral instruments, have been most closely associated with popular forms of music like marches and jazz. Classical composers paid as much attention to them as they would to steel guitars or drum kits.
TLDR: The saxophone is a relatively new instrument invented in the 1840’s and therefore most well known classical music pre-dates it.
The saxophone was one of a number of Brass instruments invented by Belgian Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and at the time it was not well received by the industry because Sax refused to use the pre-fab components that dominated the brass instrument industry at the time.
This turned it into a niche instrument (like a small brand synthesizer today) so it ended up being used in *modern* music vs classic music.
The Saxophone was picked up by military bands of all things, and would later become a staple of Jazz music in the US.
But the simple fact is that the saxophone is a relatively new instrument that wasn’t around when most well known pieces of classical music were being written in the 17th and 18th centuries.
So the saxophone isn’t in an orchestra for the same reason that Electric Guitars, Electric Bass, Synths, and Drum kits aren’t.
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The saxophone works very well in an orchestral setting. Unfortunately, the inventor made enemies of his rival instrument manufacturers, and they strongarmed orchestras into excluding the sax. This great video goes into the details: https://youtu.be/BsfPS7pXg1E
Because we’re too out there for their weird, medieval sensibilities.
Also most orchestral music predates our existence, so if you’re there for a true experience there shouldn’t be any saxophones.
There really just isn’t a whole lot of orchestral music that includes saxophone. It’s a very new instrument
I have inherited my dad’s C-melody saxophone he played in a dance band/orchestra in the 1940s. His band was the Nighthawks. The band included an accordion, piano, and violin. Unconventional, but that band was one of a handful of bands that existed around that time. They played in dance halls around the area. I realize that this isn’t the ‘normal’ orchestra because they played modern music at the time and not classical.
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