busnutmedic

Hello :)

I play a Besson International. I was told by my teacher it was made by Kanstul. It plays very well for me, I have not had any problems except a minor finish bubbling, on the underside of the leadpipe (supposedly red rot). Anyhow, it does play well for me, but I've gotten terrible reviews from various sources on this horn, and I wondered, is this really a Kanstul horn? My teacher is pretty knowledgible on this sort of thing, and he actually said he'd spoken to Kanstul about this before I bought it. It was at a very reasonable price, and I couldn't imagine him trying to hype up the horn for selling reasons.
Anyone know anything about this horn?? Since I've never heard of it before I bought it, and no one I know locally knows much about horns, I'd love to know some background on it.

Bonnie

Tootsall

Hi Bustnut. I just saw your message. I've owned a Besson International (aka "BE 800") for the last 5 years. It's a Kanstul-built horn. Kanstul used to build trumpets etc. on contract for Boosey & Hawkes for the (primarily) North American market.

The International is a fine "little" horn for the price (assuming you didn't have to pay "list" for it!). To give you an idea, the one I have was about 1 month old and I got it for $600 Cdn (which, at the time, was about $380 US). I played it for a couple of years and purchased "up" to a Strad only because I got a deal on the strad at the time.

I played the Besson in an adult community band where I found that as long as I didn't try to "match artillery" with the Bachs etc. there was no problem. The horn slotted very nicely (better than the Strad in fact). The lack of bracing meant that you could "bend notes around" quite a bit. The valves were always good but I initially found the springs a bit "tight" for me. A quick email to the Kanstul factory fixed that... they mailed me three different sets of springs, all different weights, FREE!

My son is now playing that horn in his school concert and jazz bands. It remains trouble-free with good valves and good intonation. As long as he looks after it I think it'll last him as long as he wants it to.

If you have any questions about your International, a quick post to Jack Kanstul with the serial number would probably get you an equally quick reply as to when it was built & etc.

busnutmedic

Hey! Thanks for the quick reply. I had written an email to a company affiliated with Kanstul (I can't remember if it was Kanstul, or Besson) for lighter springs but I got no response. By now I am well used to the springs, and they don't bother me too much.

I'm a smallish person (5'4"), and I had tried a few pro horns that were bigger than this one, but I had settled on this one before I even knew what it was. I'm not very horn-literate , although I have learned a lot from online forums, so it was pretty much a blind test. Anyhow, thanks again for the info, I'll see if I can find out anything from the Kanstul people.

Bonnie