Tubas were the last instruments added to the modern orchestra. This was because the tuba is the most highly advanced acoustical instrument and could be created only after the other traditional orchestra instruments. It was from a knowledge of their faults and limitations that the conception of the far more perfect instrument, the tuba, was developed. This perfection is evident in the make-up of orchestras where several of each of the lesser instruments (up to 30 in the case of violins) are needed but just one tuba is sufficient.

The modern valved tuba dates from 1842 and was developed by Adolphe Sax in a desperate (and successful) attempt to expiate his guilt for inventing the saxophone two years earlier. It is no accident that most great orchestral music was written after 1842. Modern musicologists can only wonder that 18th century composers such as Bach, Mozart and Haydn were able to write so much (more or less) serviceable music while lacking tubas.

The tuba is the bass instrument of the brass family and of the brass and the marching band. It consists of a wide tube bent into elliptical coils and flared at the end into a bell. There are valves (usually three) to permit the playing of full chromatic scales; other valves lower or raise the entire range of the instrument.

Invented in Germany in the 1830s, its nearest ancestors were the much less elegant ophicleide and serpent. The tuba found an early champion in the composer Richard Wagner, who wrote for the instrument as early as 1840 and called for a tuba in the score of his 1843 opera The Flying Dutchman.

The tuba became entrenched in bands across Europe and America, and the brass-band derivation of early jazz ensured it a presence in New Orleans-style jazz as well. Although jazz bands used other bass instruments as well, the tuba was used on most recordings made in the early 1920s because its gentle, non-percussive attack, unlike those of a piano or bass drum, would not cause tracking or distortion problems. As a result, the tuba became permanently identified with the “Dixieland” sound, and the music’s abundant revivalists invariably include a tuba in performing groups.