The French Flute School, as practiced by pupils of Claude-Paul Taffanel

Claude-Paul Taffanel

Claude-Paul Taffanel 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, employed a playing style featuring a light tone and vibrato

Vibrato

Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...

. These flautist

Flautist

A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...

s used metal flutes of the modified Boehm system

Boehm System

The Boehm system is a system of keywork for the flute, created by inventor and flautist Theobald Boehm between 1831 and 1847.Prior to the development of the Boehm system, flutes were most commonly made of wood, with an inverse conical bore, eight keys, and tone holes that were small in size, and...

 by Louis Lot and others. This stood in contrast to the mostly wooden German and English instruments, which their flutists 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 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

Georges Barrère was a French flautist.-Early life:Georges Barrère was the son of a cabinetmaker, Gabriel Barrère, and Marie Périne Courtet, an illiterate farmer's daughter from Guilligomarc'h. They married in 1874. They had previously had a son Étienne, out of wedlock, in 1872...

, René de Roy and Marcel Moyse

Marcel Moyse

Marcel Moyse was a famous French flutist. Many works were composed for Moyse including the 1934 Flute Concerto by Jacques Ibert...

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