Colors of French Music
13 février 2013
Paul Taffanel is a name that every flute player recognizes or will come across sooner or later. Experienced flutists will surely know him from his famous “Méthode complète de flûte” that he wrote together with his star-pupil Philippe Gaubert.
Paris was the cultural capital of Europe for a long time. “It was happening” in Paris in the 19h century and artists, among many musicians from whole of Europe (and outside), came to the city that breathed Opera, Avant-Garde, revival of Early Music, the famous Conservatoire and the many Societies that were founded in which recognized artists met to inspire eachother to move forward creating a new Nationalistic style.
From ±1870 there was this phenomenal flutist Paul Taffanel who became one of the most important musicians of Europe. He played, composed, conducted. He was the teacher of many important flutists, being the source of the contemporary way of flute playing that spread over the world. What many people don’t realize is that this same Paul Taffanel strongly influenced the Parisian flute-builders that soon would rule and influence the world. And also that he gave an immense impulse to chamber music (for winds) by founding his "Société de Musique de Chambre”: the reason why we now have such a nice and important French repertoire.
Without Paul Taffanel the Flute-World of today would be very different. Our instruments might have been very different, our repertoire, surely our way of playing. In this lecture we will discover the meaning of this Flute-Master to the repertoire YOU are playing today, the way you are playing it, or…the way you can, or even should play it…
Egbert Jan Louwerse is Professor of Flute at the Prince Claus Conservatoire Groningen and was awarded in June 2015 by the French Société Académique Arts-Sciences-Lettres in Paris a “Medaille d’Ardent” for his work on French Music.
www.egbertjanlouwerse.nl
