Tune of the Day: Échos
Jacques Hotteterre is regarded as one of the most outstanding French musicians of the baroque period. He was the most celebrated of a family of wind instrument makers and wind performers.
Hotteterre owed his fame largely to his talent playing the flute, an instrument for which he wrote a number of pieces, significantly extending the repertory for the instrument. In addition, he played the bassoon, oboe, and musette (French bagpipe). He was also an internationally celebrated teacher to aristocratic patrons, and he wrote a few methods for the transverse flute.
In addition to performance and teaching, Hotteterre continued his family's tradition of wind instrument making. It may have been Hotteterre who made a number of changes in the design of the transverse flute, though there is little concrete evidence for this. Most notably, the flute, which had previously been made in one cylindrical piece, was cut in three pieces: the head, the body and the foot.