Lissieu

This unusual model is a copy of an original in the Kunshistorisches Museum in Vienna, made by the french maker Lissieu, active in the second half of the seventeenth in Lyon. Little is known about the life of this maker, but his instruments appaer to have been well known for their quality and fine workmanship. The only known referance to Lissieu, in the Musette method of Piere Borjon de Scellery (Lyon, 1672) reads:

"Le sieur Lissieux, qui depuis quelques anneé s'est étably à Lyon, en construit [des musettes] avec beaucoup de propreté et de justesse, aussi bien que toute sorte d'utres instruments à vent. Je n'en connois point qui approche davantage de l'adresse des sieurs Hotteterre."

(Mr. Lissieux, who has been established in Lyon since a few years, makes them [musettes] with great accuracy and good intonation, as well as all sorts of other wind instruments. I don't know any other maker who approaches him in quality of work, apart for the Hotteterres"

Apart for the flute the only other survivng instruments by Lissieu is a beautifully made musette de cour by him survivng in the collection of Moreph Chantry Bagpipe Museum in England. The musette can be dated to the 1670's.
The flute is a high pitch instrument, playing at a=460 and is, acustically speaking, of a renaissance design: cylindrical bore, six finger holes and works well with renaissance fingering. The wall thickness is slightly larger then an avarage renaissance instrument, which, combined with the high pitch, give this instrument a sweet, concentrated, almost recorder-like sound. The ornamental turning on the flute, on the other hand, is baroque, and its porportions and style reminicent of an other seventeenth century flute by the Dutch maker Haka.
As for the instrument's repertoire, it is difficult to say what french flutists in that time period would have played on such an instrument. The high pitch, and the type of sound and response are, however, most suitable for playing earlier seventeeth century repertoire, such as Italian Canzonas and early Sonatas, and can be combined well with other wind instruments at high pitch: cornetto, dulcians and trombone.

This model is available at the original pitch, A=460 as well as with an extra lower body part for A=465.

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