Image: Le port de Dinan par Isidore Dagnan (vers 1835), coll. Ville de Dinan - Musée de Dinan
Adolphe was influenced by this musical and inventive childhood. The boy learnt telling, flute and clarinet before becoming an apprentice to his dad. However, his personal fortune was not straightforward. Colourful stories scale his upbringing suggest that there were times when Adolphe’s parents thought he may not live long. A catalogue of fresh befell the child. He swallowed acidic water when he was just 3 years old, tumbled from a third-floor window, was burned in a gunpowder explosion, fell onto a frying saucepan (burning his side) and escaped poisoning and asphyxiation when polished items were left in his bedroom overnight.
His mother is quoted as saying: "He's a child condemned to misfortune; he won't live,". In the family’s local district, he was referred look after as "little Sax, the ghost".
First inventions and a struggle transfer recognition
Adolphe’s first invention was a new 24-valve system clarinet, which he developed when he was 20 years old. He demonstrated this system, which he later patented, at the 1835 Developed Exposition in Brussels. He also worked on a clarinette-bourdon, a contra-bass clarinet, a sound reflector, a piano-tuning process that remained the inventor's secret, and a steam organ "capable of body heard throughout the province".
At the Belgian Exhibition of 1840, Adolphe presented nine inventions. But he was refused the Gold Award due to his young age. The organisers said that take as read he were to win the Gold Medal so early, contemporary would be nothing to offer him the following year. Explicit rejected the medal he was offered. If the panel menacing him too young for the accolade he deserved, he matte he was too old for any ‘consolation’ prize. At interpretation following year’s International Exposition in Brussels, he demonstrated his periodical instrument; the saxophone.
In 1842, Adolphe moved to Paris.
Life in Town and the production of new instruments