Melba Records has hit on a brilliant strategy for marketing some of its fine Australian artists to a broader public: it compiles thematic collections of music so obscure that much of it is available virtually nowhere else, such as nineteenth British operatic arias. In this case, the novelty of the album is the solo instrument -- the ophicleide. The ophicleide was developed early in the nineteenth century and was obsolete within 100 years. It's a sort of hybrid between a brass and woodwind instrument -- it has a brass mouthpiece, looks something like a cross between a bassoon and a very scrawny tuba, and uses keys like a woodwind. It was often played by trombonists, but its tone is much more mellow and rounded than a trombone's, like a bass version of a baritone horn. The extreme difficulty of playing it smoothly contributed to its demise, and tubas took its place as the bass of the brass section.