Jacques-Martin Hotteterre

Jacques-Martin Hotteterre
(b Paris, 29 Sept 1673; d Paris, 16 July 1763). Son of (3) Martin Hotteterre.

He was the most celebrated member of the family, and had a brilliant career as a player, teacher and composer. Several years before his mother's death in 1708, Jacques's father gave him 3000 livres to acquire the post of ‘grand hautbois du roy’. He obtained the reversion of the post of ‘flutte de la chambre de roy’ on 26 August 1717 (for 6000 livres) on the retirement of René Pignon Descoteaux, although he is referred to as such on the title page of his Premier livre de pièces, published nine years earlier. In 1747 his court posts passed to his eldest son, Jean-Baptiste Hotteterre (b Paris, 1 Aug 1732; d Paris, 9 Sept 1770), a maker and player of woodwind instruments. On 2 January 1763 Jacques's daughter, Marie-Geneviève, married the organist Claude-Bénigne Balbastre; the many signatures of illustrious musicians and aristocrats on the contract testify to Jacques's high social standing at the end of his life. His estate included several grand houses in Paris, his wealth derived from family inheritance and marriage as well as his popularity as a teacher of amateurs of the fashionable world. The frontispiece of his Principes de la flûte traversière is presumed to be a portrait of him, playing a three-piece flute from his father's workshop (see Flute, §II, 4(ii), fig.13). Titon du Tillet (Orchestre de Parnasse, 1743) placed him among the most important musicians of France. If he did make flutes, as is claimed in the diary of J.F.A. von Uffenbach (1715), it was probably in association with the family workshop on the rue de Harlay; neither the inventory taken at his marriage nor that taken after his death list woodwind instruments or tools for their manufacture.