heck·el·phone  (hěk'əl-fōn')  n. A woodwind instrument of the oboe family, with a pitch between that of an English horn and a bassoon. [German Heckelphon, after Wilhelm Heckel (1879-1952), German musical instrument maker.] |
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.
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