The French Flute School, as practiced by pupils of

Paul Taffanel Claude-Paul Taffanel (16 September 1844 – 22 November 1908) was a French flautist, conductor and instructor, regarded as the founder of the French Flute School that dominated much of flute composition and performance during the mid-20th century ...

at the

Paris Conservatoire The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

, employed a playing style featuring a light tone and

vibrato Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...

. Students strived to capture the sound quality of Taffanel in their own playing. Louis Fleury described Taffanel's tone as, "captivating, and also very full."This reference of a full sound has often been described as powerful and brassy, which can be taken as derogatory. However, when Gaubert was questioned once about this, he redressed the balance by reiterating the word 'full' by insisting that Taffanel produced a perfectly homogeneous tone throughout the entire range of the instrument. This became fundamental quality common to the great flautists of the French School and can be seen in Taffanel's successors.Dorgeuille, pg. 16 These

flautist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

s used metal flutes of the modified

Boehm system The Boehm system is a system of keywork for the flute, created by inventor and flautist Theobald Boehm between 1831 and 1847. History Immediately prior to the development of the Boehm system, flutes were most commonly made of wood, with an i ...

by Louis Lot and others. This stood in contrast to the mostly wooden German and English instruments, which their flautists played with a strong and steady sound.

Spreading influence

The generation of Taffanel's pupils was one when musical performance and education were rapidly becoming more common. A corresponding increase in the Conservatoire's productivity helped extend these pupils' influence. The graduation rate under the professorships of Louis Dorus and

Joseph-Henri Altès Joseph-Henri Altès (18 January 1826 – 24 July 1899) was a 19th-century French flautist, composer and pedagogue. Biography Born in Rouen, Joseph-Henri Altès was the son of a soldier. Violinist and conductor Ernest Eugène Altès was his youn ...

had averaged slightly less than one per year; 35 students won first prizes between 1866 and 1899. During the next 40-year period, from 1900 to 1939, the number of first-prize students doubled to 86. This number included an unprecedented five students graduating in the same year—1920. This rate increased still more rapidly in the 1940s, with 48 first prizes awarded to graduates of two flute classes at the Conservatoire. As the number of graduates increased, so did the opportunities for work. While solo wind recitals remained uncommon, the number of orchestral concerts in Paris between 1906 and the late 1920s doubled to 1880 a year. By 1930, the Conservatoire had become the top of a national pyramid of musical education in France which included 23 branch academies, 21 "national" schools and 20 municipal schools.

Beyond France

For various reasons, those pupils of Taffanel's who spread their teacher's influence most widely as teachers operated primarily in the United States. These students included

Georges Barrère Georges Barrère (Bordeaux, October 31, 1876 - New York, June 14, 1944) was a French flutist.Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) Early life Georges Barrère was the son of a cabinetmaker, Gabriel Barrère, and Marie Périne Courtet ...

René Le Roy René Le Roy (; 4 March 1898 – 3 January 1985) sometimes spelled René LeRoy, was a French 20th-century flutist and a pedagogue. Biography René Le Roy was born in 1898 in Maisons-Laffitte. His parents were both amateur musicians, his father ...

and

Marcel Moyse Marcel Moyse (pron. ''moh-EEZ''; May 17, 1889, in St. Amour, France – November 1, 1984, in Brattleboro, Vermont, United States) was a French flautist. Moyse studied at the Paris Conservatory and was a student of Philippe Gaubert, Adolphe Hen ...

. This may explain why the French Flute School had a strong influence on flute-playing there in the early 20th century.

References

*Debost, Michel, ''The Simple Flute: From A to Z. Oxford University Press, 2002. *Dorgeuillie, Claude, and Edward Blakeman, ''The French Flute School: 1860-1950''. London: Bingham, 1986. *Fleury, Louis and Frederick H. Martens, "The Flute and Flutists in the French Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," ''The Music Quarterly'', vol. 9, no. 4. *Myers, Arnold, "Marcel Moyse" ''The Galpin Society Journal'', vol. 49. *Powell, Ardal, ''The Flute''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. *Gearheart, Sarah, Exploring the French Flute School in North America: An Examination of the Pedagogical Materials of Georges Barèrre, Marcel Moyse, and Renè De Roy, May 2001.

Spreading influence

Beyond France

References

Further reading