heckelphone

heckelphone, double-reed woodwind instrument resembling the baritone oboe. It was perfected by Wilhelm Heckel in 1904 as a result of a request from the composer Richard Wagner about 20 years earlier for a low-register instrument combining the qualities of the oboe and the alphorn.

The heckelphone is of conical bore (wider than the baritone oboe’s) and has a bent metal crook and a wooden bell. It is usually built in C an octave below the oboe, with an extended lower register. It was first used by Richard Strauss in his operas Salome and Elektra. The compass is from the second A below middle C to the second G above. Other forms are the smaller terzheckelphone in E♭ and the piccolo-heckelphone in F.