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Jean-Pierre Batt

[b]Jean-Pierre Batt[/b] is a French violist, player of historical woodwind instruments, and harpsichord maker from Paris. He co-founded [b][a1710455][/b], a pioneering French medieval folk band that performed on period instruments. Batt appeared on the first seven LP albums, released between 1969 and 1976 by [l=Disques Du Cavalier] label, playing on [i]bass de viol[/i], [i]dessus de viole[/i] (the highest-pitched viol), as well as [i]swahm[/i] and [i]crumhorn[/i] (double-reed woodwinds), and occasionally on "jew's harp." Little is known about Jean-Pierre Batt's earlier life and activities beyond the mid-1970s; he's been very private and didn't enroll in the [i]Register of Early Music[/i] or contemporary guilds of instrument-makers. In 1969, he constructed an Italian harpsichord after the 1677 model by [i]Pietro Faby of Bologna[/i] (fl. 1677—1691), made by antique methods from the recycled old ship's mast. The first mention of Batt's harpsichord, likely referring to the same instrument, is in the 1976 article "[i]Paris: A Survey[/i]" by Fiona McAlpine, published in [url=https://discogs.com/label/126078]Oxford[/url]'s [i]Early Music[/i] journal, Vol 4/No.1: "[i][…] I have also heard a resonant Italian harpsichord made by Jean-Pierre Batt, late of Les Menestriers[/i]." This harpsichord currently belongs to British keyboardist and collector [url=https://discogs.com/artist/10158451]Paul Simmonds[/url], heard on several recordings — two [a=Colin Tilney]'s LP albums, 1973 [i][url=https://discogs.com/release/5762294]English Virginal Music[/url][/i] on [url=https://discogs.com/label/645373]Argo[/url] and 1979 [i][url=https://discogs.com/master/1498606]Dowland Transcriptions[/url][/i] on [l=L'Oiseau-Lyre], plus 1996 [i]Concerning Babell & Son[/i] CD on [l=Ars Musici] by [a=Trio Basiliensis] (where Simmonds plays). In her 2012 memoirs, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/3464177]Catharina Meints Caldwell[/url], a renowned American cellist and [url=https://discogs.com/label/275380]Oberlin[/url]'s associate professor of Viola da Gamba and Cello, briefly mentioned Jean-Pierre Batt as "[i]a Parisian friend[/i]," who helped Catharina and her husband, oboist [url=https://discogs.com/artist/3818687]Jim Caldwell[/url], snuck out copies of newly-discovered unpublished music of [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1568350]Le Sieur de Sainte-Colombe[/url]. Jean-Pierre photocopied a few duets at [url=https://discogs.com/label/433125]Bibliothèque Nationale[/url] in Paris, allowing Meints and Caldwell to give the early US premiere of Sainte-Colombe's works that subsequently became the staple of the viol repertoire.