Georges Mager's Courtois D Trumpet

This Courtois D trumpet was given to Boyde Hood (Los Angeles Philharmonic trumpeter, now retired) for Christmas when he was 13 years old by Llewellyn Bromfield of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, with the story that it had belonged to and was used by Georges Mager in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  When Boyde showed this trumpet to Bud Herseth, he said that it does look like the Courtois trumpets that he remembers Mager playing.  Bromfield acquired it from Joe Alessi Sr. when he was studying with Schlossberg at the Institute of Musical Arts (later renamed Julliard).  Alessi had gotten it from Mager.  

The story and corroboration are believable, but I'm always curious to know more details.  This trumpet gave me fewer clues for the date of manufacture than most Courtois instruments.  Earlier examples, like the C and Bb trumpets and those in F, G and Ab featured on other pages, have serial numbers stamped on the underside of the third valve cap and the successive medals indicated on the bell give a range of years possible. Instruments made after about 1901 have a new series of numbers stamped on the second valve casing.  This trumpet has none of that evidence, with the bell stamp much simpler than I recall seeing before and no serial number.  

The details such as valve caps, waterkey and pull knobs are like earlier instruments and the construction of the valves, with fixed valve guides and bottom springs, is like the orchestral F and G trumpets made from the 1840s until about 1900.  All these details led me to guess that it was made around that transitional time. Antoine Courtois’ former apprentice who became shop owner, Auguste Mille, had died in 1897, after which the shop was run by business men rather than instrument makers.  Courtois was already listing D trumpets by 1885 and C trumpets were listed in their 1897 catalog, but those were with a mouthpipe shank for C and crooks for Bb and A like we are accustomed to in cornets of that time.

The next morsel of evidence is a photograph taken in 1921 of the brass section of the BSO, provided by Doug Yeo from the Boston Symphony Archives.  The trumpet that Mager (front row, center) is holding here is obviously a C trumpet, but with the same details of this D trumpet.  The curved braces and the angle of the second valve slide are the most noticeable but also the pull knobs, waterkey mount, tuning slide brace, mouthpiece receiver ferrule and rounded slide ferrules all appear to match.  Even his mouthpiece appears to be a Courtois.  However, I received an email from Ralph Henssen, who is an expert in the history of trumpets made by Millereau in Paris. He kindly sent me photographs of his Millereau trumpet in C with details that match Mager’s even more closely than Courtois. He also sent a scan of a 1924 advertisement that included George Mager’s endorsement of Millereau’s trumpets.

In the second photo of the same brass section, taking in 1925, Gustav Perret appears to have the same model trumpet.   French C trumpets were not new to the orchestra, based on another photograph, taken in 1915, that shows Gustav Heim and Louis Kloepfel (both of whom were known to prefer Bb) are both holding what appear to be Besson C trumpets.

This D trumpet is very well preserved, including original silver plated finish. It is 16 3/4" long with mouthpiece removed (15 1/2" from bell rim to curve, the bell rim diameter is 4 7/16" and the bore measures .447".