The Innovations of Václav František Červený (1819–1896) and the Austrian-Czech Tradition of Making Chromatic Brass Instruments

Abstract

Václav František Červený became the founder of the Austro-Czech tradition of manufacturing chromatic brass instruments, which represented in their day an alternative to Adolph Sax’s system. Červený’s innovations were realised successively from the 1840s through the ’80s. Many of these instruments are still being made and used mainly in the successor states of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, and eastern Europe. The study focuses on Červený’s main innovations. Thanks to the solving of the technical problems associated with instrument bodies with a conical bore, Červený succeeded at creating a complete family of wide-bored instruments ranging from the flugelhorn to the contrabass tuba. These instruments became the foundation of Austro-Czech wind music and of its style of instrumentation.