Besson

French and English firm of brass instrument manufacturers. It was founded in Paris (?1838) by Gustave Auguste Besson (1820-75), who in 1851 also opened a London factory. Among his improvements in brass-instrument making were the straight bore (1854), the full bore (1855) and the ‘prototype’ system of mandrels, assuring exact duplication of instruments (1856). From c 1882 the French firm continued under the name Fontaine-Besson; its important instruments include the first piccolo G trumpet (1885), a bass trumpet in C for works by Wagner, the family of cornophones (1890) and the large-bore B♭ trumpet (the first modern B♭ trumpet).

Etymology: In central France dialects the word "besson" or "bisson" means "twin" and comes from Latin adverb "bis" (two times).

Besson may refer to:

• Besson (company), a manufacturer of brass instruments
• Besson, Allier, a commune of the Allier département in France
• Besson (aircraft), a French aircraft manufacturer of the 1920s/1930s (particularly float planes)

People with the surname Besson

• Albert Besson, French physician
• Benno Besson, Swiss actor and film director
• Colette Besson, French athlete
• Frank S. Besson, Jr., U.S. Army general
• Gustave Auguste Besson (1820-1874), brass instrument maker
• Luc Besson, film director
• Louis Besson, French minister
• Éric Besson, French minister
• Philippe Besson, French writer

This page or section lists people with the surname Besson. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)