Perhaps a Ballad Horn?

Here’s an interesting horn. It seems essentially a baritone or euphonium, but pitched in ‘C’, a step higher than a modern instrument; looks like a modern 4 valve horn, but a trifle smaller, as one might expect from the higher pitch. The bell is quite small, by modern tastes, with a large throat, and the tubing is conical throughout. Its sound is similar to my ‘C’ ophiclyde, which is also quite conical, with a similar size bell – quite mellow, but lacking darkness.

Engraved on the bill is Kandowsky, 74 Rue de Cirche, Paris – I gather a large retail shop, stamping its name on instruments from other contract manufacturers. In the day, there were numerous, quite good, factories in both France and Bohemia. Many Lyon and Healy brass instruments from the period were sourced from both regions.

It’s ‘C’ pitch allows it to be played along with a piano, reading the melody line over the pianist’s shoulder, without transposing – exactly like a C-melody sax. Horns produced with this in mind, around 1900, were often sold as “ballad horns”, but they were never curled similar to a euphonium. They were generally circular, like a mellophone or coach horn (at least from what I’ve seen).

Regardless, a neat horn, and a fine player, though not with a full modern euphonium sound. Not a tremendous amount of wear (the valves are quite tight), but it had taken a pretty severe hit, and been sloppily put back together using lead solder and square nails to replace some braces. Cost me more to put the poor thing to rights than it cost me to buy.