Classical Music | Music for Flute

Recorded on 01/29/2008, uploaded on 01/24/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

When Paul Taffanel accepted the position of Professor of Flute at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire in 1893, he set out to reshape the institution’s repertoire and teaching methods, and in doing so greatly influenced flute performance for the next half century. He became the founder of what became known as the French Flute School and was an inspiring teacher. He was also instrumental in reviving the works of older composers—in particular, J. S. Bach, which brought the now four-score year old Bach Revival to France. It is no surprise, then, that when Gabriel Fauré became the Professor of Composition in 1896, Taffanel commissioned two works from his friend: the Fantaisie, op. 79 and Morceau de Concours. The commissions came from Taffanel in 1898 and the works were to be used as part of the examinations that summer. The first was a virtuosic piece to be accompanied by the piano or an orchestra, and Fauré feverishly pushed aside the orchestration of his incidental music for Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande to set to work on it in June of that year. The latter piece, on the other hand, is a simple, but charming, sight-reading piece. A mere thirty-three measures in length, it consists of a flowing and serene melodic line, allotted solely to the flute, obediently wrought from the scales, arpeggios, and figurations one expects to find in such a piece, and supported by simple chords in the piano. Yet, Fauré quite effectively masks these technical obligations and creates, to a certain degree, a charming miniature.     Joseph DuBose

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Morceau de Concours          Gabriel Fauré

In 1905, after nine years as a professor of composition, counterpoint and fugue, Gabriel Fauré was chosen Director of the Paris Conservatoire. According to Charles Koechlin, Fauré's friend and biographer, "It remained difficult to modify the instrumental repertoire. The competition pieces then in use stressed virtuosity. It would require a revolution in the Conservatoire to accord phrasing, style, and rhythm the importance which belonged to them - just as it would to admit music other than established classics." But Fauré accomplished his purpose as he had always done: with music of such utter simplicity, sincerity and freshness as to be irresistible. The present work is a prime example. The title page of the original manuscript bears the inscription Flute - Concours 1898 and after the final double bar Gabriel Fauré - 14 Juillet, 1898. Bastille Day. Presumably, the Conservatoire was closed for the holiday and the professor used his day off to pen this little gem. In 1970, the as-yet unknown work was sold by a Brussels collector to Anabel Hulme Brieff who then published it.    (Note by Anabel Hulme Brieff)

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.