Quinticlave

Overview

The quinticlave is an alto-range keyed brass instrument belonging to the ophicleide family. Pitched a fifth above the bass ophicleide — a relationship that gives the instrument its name — it filled a middle voice in early-19th-century military and orchestral brass writing. Like the bass ophicleide, it used a conical brass body with a series of keyed tone holes operated by the right hand, producing a chromatic scale across a range of about two and a half octaves.

Origin & History

The keyed brass family was developed in the early 19th century as an attempt to extend natural-trumpet and -horn technique into chromatic playing without valves. The bass ophicleide, patented by Jean Hilaire Asté in 1817, was the most successful of the line, and the alto and tenor sizes — including the quinticlave — followed in attempts to provide a complete keyed family. The quinticlave was used in French military bands and in some orchestral writing through the middle decades of the 19th century, but it never achieved wide adoption and was supplanted by Adolphe Sax’s saxhorn family from the 1840s onward.

How It’s Played

The quinticlave is played with a brass-style cup mouthpiece and an embouchure similar to that used for the cornet or modern alto horn. The right hand operates a series of large keys covering tone holes drilled along the conical body, producing chromatic notes by altering the effective length of the air column. The instrument’s voice is reedy and slightly hollow — quieter and more covered than a saxhorn or modern alto horn. Surviving repertoire is limited and most modern playing is undertaken by historical-performance specialists.

Cultural Significance

The quinticlave belongs to a brief, transitional moment in brass-instrument history: the gap between the natural-trumpet tradition and the modern valved brass family. Its short commercial life is part of the wider story of how Sax’s instruments displaced the keyed brass tradition almost entirely. Surviving examples are now studied as evidence of the experimentation that led to today’s standard brass section.

Related Instruments

• Ophicleide – the bass-range parent
• Serpent – the keyed brass family’s earlier cousin
• Saxhorn – the eventual successor
• Key bugle – contemporary keyed brass cousin
• Lupophon – another short-lived experimental wind instrument

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “quinticlave” mean?
It refers to the instrument’s position a fifth (quinte) above the bass ophicleide.

Is the quinticlave still played?
Rarely — surviving examples are used by historical-performance specialists studying 19th-century French repertoire.

What replaced it?
Adolphe Sax’s saxhorn family, from the 1840s onward.

Image: Tenor (alto) ophicleide in E-flat, attributed to Charles-Joseph Sax, MET DP249370, CC0 (Wikimedia Commons / Metropolitan Museum of Art).