The idea to create the instrument was initiated by Richard Wagner, who suggested its concept at the occasion of a visit of Wilhelm Heckel in 1879.

[2]: 141 The heckelphone is approximately 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in) in length and heavy enough to require that the instrument rest on the floor, supported by a short metal peg attached to the underside of its bulbous bell ("Liebesfuss").

[2]: 324  The instrument was subsequently employed in the same composer's Elektra, as well as An Alpine Symphony[5] (though this part frequently calls for notes that are below the range of the heckelphone),[6] Josephslegende[7] and Festliches Präludium.

It was adopted as part of the large orchestral palette of such works as Edgard Varèse's Amériques (1918–1921) and Arcana (1925–1927), George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía de Antígona (1933).

[citation needed] The heckelphone is often confused with F. Lorée's redesigned hautbois baryton which was introduced in 1889, the term "bass oboe" being widely used to describe both instruments.

Among English composers of the early-20th century there was some vogue for the use of a "bass oboe", for example in Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets (1916), as well as in several works of Frederick Delius (A Mass of Life, 1904–1905; Dance Rhapsody No.

American composer William P. Perry used the heckelphone as part of a double reed quartet in his score for the film The Mysterious Stranger.

Shreeves plays regularly with the Metropolitan Opera while Perchanok has performed many new and older compositions for the instrument and has recorded with the Paul Winter Consort.

Other notable American players include Robert Howe of Massachusetts, most known for recital work, and Arthur Grossman of Seattle, Washington.

The first annual meeting of the North American Heckelphone Society took place on August 6, 2001, at the Riverside Church in New York City, with six heckelphonists in attendance—possibly the first occasion upon which six such instruments had been assembled under one roof.