Mahillon, Charles (-Borromée)

Mahillon, Charles (-Borromée), Belgian manufacturer of wind instruments; b. Brussels, Nov. 4,1814; d. Molenbeek-St.-Jean, Sept. 4, 1887. He received his training as an instrument maker in England, then organized his own firm in Brussels (1836), where he became esteemed as a manufacturer of clarinets. His son Victor-Charles Mahillon (b. Brussels, March 10,1841; d. St. Jean, Cap Ferrat, June 17,1924) worked in his father’s shop as a youth; pursued a diligent study of acoustics and publ, the periodical L’Echo Musical (1869–87). Upon his father’s death, he took charge of the firm. He also served as curator of the Brussels Cons. Instrument Museum (from 1876), enlarging its collection from his own holdings. He publ. Les Éléments d’acoustique musicale et instrumentale (Brussels, 1874), Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Musée instrumental du Conservatoire royal de musique de Bruxelles (Ghent, 1880–1922), Le Matériel sonore des orchestres de symphonie, d’harmonie et de fanfares, ou Vade mecum du compositeur (Brussels, 1897; 5^th ed., 1920), Instruments à vent (Brussels, 1906–07), Notes théoriques et pratiques sur la résonance des colonnes d’air dans les tuyaux de la facture instrumentale (St. Jean, Cap Ferrat, 1921), etc. His brother, Fernand Mahillon (b. Brussels, March 3,1866; d. there, March 6,1948), ran the London branch of the firm for some 30 years, and upon Victor-Charles’s death took control of the firm, turning it over to J.A. Smits in 1936. It ceased making wind instruments in 1935.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire