Biographies of Famous Flageolet Players, Composers and Makers

William Bainbridge (?–1831); Inventor, player and populariser of the double and triple flageolets.

Tomas Greeting (?–1682); Court musician who wrote the first important treatise on French flageolet playing, The Pleasant Companion.

Jean-Pierre Freillon-Poncein (c. 1700); Writer of the woodwind instruction manual La veritable maniere… one of the earliest French manuals for the French flageolet.

Marin Mersenne (1588–1648); French musicologist, whose Harmonie Universelle includes the earliest discussion of a flageolet.

John Parry (1776–1851); Welsh instrumentalist and composer. Inspired William Bainbridge to invent the double flageolet and became its first professional player and teacher.

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703); Admiralty civil servant and diarist who was a keen amateur musician. Skilled at the French flageolet, he took lessons from Tomas Greeting and bought on of the first copies of his treatise, The Pleasant Companion.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894); Scottish author and amateur flageolet–player.