Claude Laurent
Claude Laurent (4 December 1774 – 20 June 1849) was a French artisan and musician. A clockmaker at first, Laurent was known in particular for his crystal flutes,[1] a concept he patented in 1806.
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Biography
Claude Laurent was born at the small town of Saint Maurice-lès-Langres, in the north-east of France, into a family dedicated to farming, the son of Étienne Laurent (1744–1804) and Anne Juy. He was the youngest of eight children. His mother died a few months after Claude's birth, and Étienne was married to Marguerite Maillard (1756–1805) for the second nuptials in 1776.
After working as clockmaker in Paris, Laurent spent years developing a flute that would not, like wood and ivory flutes of his day, have an uneven pitch due to temperature and humidity. The result of his labor was Laurent's "flute en Cristal",[2] a new type of flute made of glass. Laurent was awarded a patent for the glass flute in 1806, a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of that year, and the approval of the Paris Athenæum of Arts.
Although few professionals could afford them, due to their high cost, the glass flutes were very often treasured by the aristocracy. In addition to eminent performers and professors, prominent personalities of the time owned them for personal use or offered them as a gift to their most admired artists. Remarkable examples are Napoleon Bonaparte's gift to the flautist Louis Drouet or that of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico to the Catalan painter Pelegrí Clavé in recognition of his work. Also the tsar of Russia Alexandre I; James Madison, President of the United States; the emperor Franz I of Austria; Joseph Bonaparte and the King Louis Bonaparte of Holland, among others, owned Laurent's instruments.
Notes
References
- Armijon, Catherine; Beaupuis, James; Bilimoff, Michèle (1991). Dictionnaire des Poinçons de Fabricants d’Ouvrages d’Or et d’Argent de Paris et de la Seine 1798-1838. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
- Armijon, Catherine; Beaupuis, James; Bilimoff, Michèle (1994). Dictionnaire des Poinçons de Fabricants d’Ouvrages d’Or et d’Argent de Paris et de la Seine 1838-1875. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
- Bate, Philip (1979). The Flute: A Study of Its History, Development and Construction. Londres: Ernest Benn.
- Carse, Adam (1939). Musical Wind Instruments. Londres: Macmillan.
- De Lorenzo, Leonardo (1951). My Complete History of the Flute. Nova York: The Citadel Press.
- Fairley, Andrew (1982). Flutes, Flautists & Makers. Londres: Pan Educational Music.
- Gascón, Montserrat (2017). Une Flûte en Cristal: Les Flautes de Vidre de Claude Laurent (1774-1849). Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
- Girard, Adrien (1953). Histoires et Richesses de la Flûte. Paris: Gründ.
- Langwill, Lindesay (1977). An Index of Musical Wind-instrument Makers. Edimburg: Lindsey & Co.
- O'Loughlin, Niall (1984). "Laurent, Claude." In: Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Groove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. London & New York: Macmillan Press.
- Powell, Ardall (2002). The Flute. New Haven and Londres: Yale University Press.
- Rolfe, Wendy H. (1985). Claude Laurent’s Crystal Flutes: An Artistic and Technological Phenomenon. Nova York: D.M.A. Manhattan School of Music.
- Taffanel, Paul; Fleury, Louis (1925). "La Flûte." In: Encyclopédie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire, Vol. 3. Paris: Delagrave, pp. 1481–1526.
