Fétis, Gevaert, Mahillon and the Oboe d’Amore

The oboe d’amore was a forgotten and obsolete musical instrument in the nineteenth century, until François­Auguste Gevaert, the second director of the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, commissioned Victor­Charles Mahillon in 1873 to make a reconstruction with up­to­date keywork for the performance of the choral works of J. S. Bach. Mahillon’s ‘reinvention’ was internationally successful and eventually became the prototype for the modern oboe d’amore. From two examples preserved at the Brussels Conservatoire, probably the earliest surviving nineteenth­century instruments, it can be seen that the first oboes d’amore had a globular or bulbed bell, as did the instruments from after 1908, as shown in the Mahillon company catalogues. Sometime before 1908 Mahillon also made (or sold) oboes d’amore with an open or expanding bell. Surviving instruments lead us to Mahillon’s Brussels colleague Jacques Albert, who also made open­belled oboes d’amore, probably from 1892. These are similar, or in some cases identical, to the Mahillon instruments with respect to bore profiles and keywork, suggesting that Mahillon hired Albert as a subcontractor to produce these.