During the 19th century, great pains were taken to develop a design
for a trumpet that would equal the cornets of the day as a solo instrument.

Working with Besson, Monsieur Merri Franquin came up with a basic
design that featured a tapered leadpipe and bell to facilitate the
elements of intonation, projection, clarity and ease of playing.

The Besson trumpets of that era were small bore horns, with very
narrow bell tapers.

A 1907 F.Besson trumpet in C was owned by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, utilized by solo trumpeters in the group performing
especially difficult passages throughout the entire 20th century.
This horn has a bore size of .445, and a very slim bell with a quick
taper to the rim.

I first saw this horn when I did a gig at Orchestra Hall back in the late
80's. I saw it again in the late 90's at the Schilke factory. It is currently
in the possession of Steve Winans, a.k.a. Dr. Valve. Playing on this horn,
on several occasions, really got me interested in the history of trpt.
design, and in trying vintage instruments. This is, by far, the easiest,
nicest playing horn I have ever played. Schilke copied this bell on his D/Eflat horns.

In my own collection, I have found several American horns which seem
to resemble this early Besson in size and design. Most notably:

The following trumpets share most characteristics of the Besson, but have
wider bell flares, more typical of the 1920's-40's Besson design:

In fact, when Adolph Herseth joined the Chicago Symphony, he was
playing a .438 bore 22B.

The influx of German conductors in American orchestras sparked a need
for trumpets that had the broader qualities of the German rotary instruments. The sound of the "french style" trumpet fell out of favour.

Conn responded with the 2B, originally designed for the players of the
Philadelphia Orchestra. This was a .460 bore variant of the 22B, but with
an important difference- The radius of the tuning slide was made wider.
The effect of this design change gave the player a more open, round sound, and allowed for a more open feeling to the scale.

Bach, Benge and Holton had early success copying the medium bore
French trumpets, But the trend in classical sound forced them to offer
larger, broader sounding instruments. When Bach moved to Mt. Vernon,
he abandoned his Brevete copy, and began copying the Conn 2B.

Although these changes, bigger bores, leadpipes and bells, succeeded in
delivering the desired sound qualities, THE EASE OF PLAYING, INTONATION AND CLARITY WENT OUT THE WINDOW.

Incidentally, the virtuoso jazz players of this era stuck with the smaller
bore, narrower wrap horns, as the physical demands of their gigs were simply too taxing to be achieved on TANKS.

Martin's dual bore concept was introduced in the "Handcraft Imperial" line. This horn had a top slide measuring .445
and a bottom slide measuring .453. This design provides the feel/resistance of the small horn with the sound of a larger
one. Later, they did the same thing with the "Committee" model. My personal feeling, owning both cylinder and dual bore
versions of the Martin, is that a great deal of focus and control are lost with the dual bore. Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie
both played the "M" bore in the 30's, switching to dual bore Committees around 1939. Listen to the recordings of Roy's
Chicago band of 1937. HOLY COW!!! Has anyone ever played more trumpet than that? I recorded "Hypnotic Suggestion"
on the dual bore H.I. My next Delmark release was recorded on the "M" bore. It gave me much more ease, facility, clarity and range.

This begs the question; Is it worth all the added physical difficulty and mental anguish to play a big, broad horn, simply because Fritz Reiner liked his Mahler symphonies tubby? Lately, I've been practicing with the Arban book on my 1939 Keefer.
It makes everything seem eminently easy. Trumpeters of the 1800's and early 1900's were undoubtedly using similar equipment.

My concern in moving to smaller horns was that I would sound smaller or weaker in performance. I have found the
opposite to be the case! The older designs provide better clarity and projection, and my students and colleagues are all
commenting on my apparent improvement in power and range. On the Buescher #9 and the Keefer, the very tight bell
flare creates a narrower sound than I am used to making, but both horns cut through bands with greater clarity, and have NO
intonation issues. Even the low D and C# are in tune without regulating the valve slides.

Yamaha has made a nice move with the Bobby Shew "Z" model. It's a variant on the "Committee" idea. Schilke makes
a superb horn in it's "S42". I'd like to see someone copy the 1907 Besson.