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The historically informed performance movement has reintroduced instruments like the serpent and ophicleide: brass instruments that add wonky color rather than sheer decibels to fortissimo outbursts.

Some have since gone extinct, like the serpent and the ophicleide, precursors of the tuba that look like plumbing designed by Dalí.

You can’t play a Serpent or an Ophicleide.

Sylvia was nearly elbowed out of her seat by an aggressive ophicleide, but an old gentleman opposite with a saxhorn behind him and a euphonium on his knees told her by way of encouragement that the soldiers didn’t pass through Indiana every day.

The name bombardon is now given to a brass instrument, the lowest of a saxhorns, in tone resembling the ophicleide.