Helicon family

[imperialbari]

Working from the end screen of the video linked to in Paul T's recent helicon thread lead to more videos with the same string ensemble backing helicons. A soprano played a Handel aria and a tenor played Tico Tico, the former more interesting than the latter, even if the very young soprano player cannot stay on pitch through all phrases.

Found this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soprano_helicon

Which doesn't entirely confirm with my reading of this engraving, where I see something like B & F, which would indicate Bohland & Fuchs, a brand supposed to be part of Amati now:

Engraving small.png

The new helicon family looks like having 7 members:

7 helicons Small.png

The photos are screen dumps from this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twSMGC2Otf4

Klaus

[David Richoux]

What an interesting looking family of horn!

It seems like Nenad Markovic is a somewhat common name in the area, but I think this is the right one:
http://nenadmarkovic.blogspot.com/p/cv.html

Also found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOsFQGXZQ4A

[imperialbari]

Nenad Markovic appears being from Novi Sad, which is in northern Serbia. Sad that the language barriers often let Eastern European traditions be largely unknown in more western countries.

Klaus

[David Richoux]

Wouldn't the smaller helicons be considered french horns?

According to the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soprano_helicon (which seems to be taken from some Melton corporate press release) the bore is very conical, even increasing in the valve section somehow.

[Untersatz]

Sounds like a flugelhorn to me

[1895King]

I have a photo of the 7th U.S. Cavalry bandroom at Fort Riley, Kansas taken around 1900. It shows several sizes of helicons and I think I have one of the band mounted on horses using them.

[bisontuba]

Hi-
Like this CDV...Alto, tenor & bass helicons...



Like this salt print-- two fellows in the middle have round/circular/'butterfly' soprano saxhorns in the "helicon style"



FYI..
Mark

[David Richoux]

There have been many different circular shaped brass instruments - this "Soprano Helicon" is not a brand new idea!

http://www.metzlerbrassrepair.com/resou ... button.jpg
http://www.metzlerbrassrepair.com/resou ... button.jpg
http://www.rugs-n-relics.com/Brass/mell ... horn-F.jpg
http://www.horn-u-copia.net/instruments ... ocal-h.jpg
http://www.fortpointbrassband.org/uploa ... 5B1%5D.jpg
http://www.horncollector.com/baritone_brass.html (under construction, so some links won't work)
http://americusbrassband.org/instrument ... a-circ.jpg
http://www.robbstewart.com/images/fiske ... ar_004.jpg

and there are probably many more! I wouldn't exactly categorize them as Helicons since they do not wrap around the body of the player, nor could they be played easily while riding a horse!