Wessex ophicleide demonstration (B flat version)

Wessex is a company in England that mostly sells Chinese made tubas and other low brasses. Happily, Wessex has decided to embrace the ophicleide, finally making a quality affordable instrument available. While there are always antique ophicleides on the market, many of them are not ’good players’, and obtaining a good one can be a difficult endeavor. The Wessex is a near-copy of an historical B-flat instrument by the well know brand of Gautrot, a French maker. The playing on this video is not the best I am capable of, and to make matters worse, I had not fully absorbed the fingering differences between my old ophicleide and the Gautrot pattern, causing more mistakes and also pitch problems. So first blame me for the intonation and timbre, they are not necessarily the fault of the Wessex instrument. I rushed this video out in order to coincide with the September issue of the Serpent Newsletter, which had an article announcing the Wessex instrument. So you are hearing a rusty player, playing an u