Étienne-François Périnet (known professionally as François Périnet; 30 May 1805,

Megève Megève (; ) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France with a population of more than 3,000 residents. The town is well known as a ski resort near Mont Blanc in the French Alps. Co ...

– 21 September 1861) was a French instrument maker, best known for his development of an early

piston valve A piston valve is a device used to control the motion of a fluid or gas along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder. Examples of piston valves are: * The valves used in many brass instruments * ...

system for

brass instrument A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by Sympathetic resonance, sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. The term ''labrosone'', from Latin elements meani ...

Work

Périnet was originally from

Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...

. He apprenticed with instrument builder Auguste Raoux, where Périnet took an interest in the new valved brass instruments being produced in Germany, based on the invention of valved horns by

Heinrich Stölzel Heinrich David Stölzel (7 September 1777 – 16 February 1844) was a German horn player who developed some of the first valves for brass instruments. He developed the first valve for a brass musical instrument, the Stölzel valve, in 1818, a ...

and

Friedrich Blühmel Friedrich Blühmel (born 1777, died before 1845) was a German horn player and musical instrument builder. He is credited as one of the earliest inventors of brass instrument valves. Biography Friedrich Blühmel initially worked as a coal miner, w ...

. In 1829, Périnet designed a new model of the

cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. There is also a soprano cor ...

, adding a third valve and allowing it to play a full range of notes. In the same year, he left Raoux and started his own business. In 1838, he patented the system of valves with staggered openings which became known as the "Périnet system"; this is the basis for the system still used for most trumpets and brass instruments today. Competition with other manufacturers (notably

Adolphe Sax Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (; 6 November 1814 – 7 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, and redesigne ...

, who held a monopoly on the supply of instruments to the military and numerous theatres, forced Périnet to sell his business in 1857. At this point, he changed his focus away from valved instruments to building

natural horn The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the predecessor to the modern-day (French) horn (differentiated by its lack of valves). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the natural horn evolved as a separation from the tr ...

s. He reopened the business as ''François Périnet, Pettex-Muffat & Cie'' in 1859. The company ''Périnet'' still exists today, manufacturing hunting horns, although Périnet himself had left by the early 1860s and it is unclear where or when he died.Trompe de Chasse Périnet
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References

External links

*http://perinet.fr {{DEFAULTSORT:Périnet, François 1805 births 1861 deaths People from Megève French musical instrument makers 19th-century French artisans