I don't know if Adolphe Sax's saxotromba qualifies as a trumpet but if it does, perhaps some of you knowledgeable folk would know something about it.

According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians it is an obsolete wind instrument patented by Sax (along with his saxhorns) in 1845, and designed to be used by mounted bands. There were three varieties in E-flat, B-flat and F (I think that's 7', 9' and 12' respectively). The F saxotromba was intended to replace the French horn. I presume the other two were meant as trumpet substitutes.

Unlike the saxhorn and saxophone, the saxotromba failed to catch on and was obsolete by 1867.

I am particularly interested in the E-flat saxotromba. In 1853, a few weeks before he began the composition of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner was in Paris and he paid a visit to Sax's workshop on the Rue St Georges. There he inspected both saxotrombas and saxhorns. When he began to score Das Rheingold, he drew up a list of the instruments that he originally intended to use in the Ring cycle: included on that list were four saxhorns (eventually replaced by the Wagner tubas) and the saxotromba in E-flat (eventually replaced by the bass trumpet).

What I am trying to find out is what precisely was the saxotromba in E-flat. What was its range? How many partials could be blown on it? Wagner notes that it had four valves ("a 4 cylindres"). What would they have done (remember, the instrument was invented around 1845)?

It is often said in manuals on orchestration that Wagner's original conception for a bass trumpet was a massive instrument in 13' E-flat, with a range from the 2nd to the 19th partial! This oft-quoted idea seems to be odds with the acoustics of the saxotromba, but I have so far failed to dig up anything definitive about the saxotromba (other than that brief article in Grove).

I would certainly appreciate any input on this subject.

Thank you.