The finest flutist of his time and honored Flûte de la Chambre du Roi at
the court of Louis XIV, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre (c. 1680-1760) wrote
this instruction book for the transverse flute, recorder, and oboe. This
treatise (originally titled Principes de la Flûte) was an important
force in the competition between the flute and recorder and hastened the
virtual extinction of the recorder as either an ensemble or solo
instrument.
The Principes has considerable practical use today, as well as being a
treatise of central importance in the historical development of the
flute. Most important, it contains an extensive discussion of principal
ornaments and embellishments of the period (appoggiaturas, springers,
terminated trills, vibrati, and mordents) and their proper and tasteful
use. This information will be valuable to modern wind players of all
kinds, instrumentalists in general, and musicologists. The long section
treating the technique of the 7-hole transverse flute -- an ancestor of
the modern instrument -- also has some modern applicability. While the
7-hole flute is far more primitive, it does have important elements in
common with the modern instrument. The section on the recorder (an
instrument which has not undergone change since the Principes was
written) is an important period instruction book, as valuable to
recorder players of today as it was to their counterparts in the
eighteenth century.
Curiously, in spite of its historical and practical interest,
Hotteterre's treatise has not previously been available to the
English-speaking world. Paul Marshall Douglas of the University of
British Columbia has provided the first modern English-language
translation in this edition. He has also included an introduction giving
the known facts of Hotteterre's life, describing the eighteenth-century
contest between flute and recorder, and noting the common usage of wind
instruments at the time.
