By Michel Debost
This article was originally published in The Instrumentalist (March, 2013)
Edited by Ed Joffe
In 1948, a young Parisian schoolboy was learning the flute and attending every concert of his favorite instrument. He often attended concerts at the Ancien Conservatoire. Built near the Folies Bergère, it resonated with much different sounds. The theater was a wooden gem with acoustics like those of a good violin: mellow, warm and effortlessly singing. It was small, but until the end of WWII, the Société des Concerts rehearsed and performed there. Chopin, Lizst and many other legends had played there. The Concours Final des Prix for the Paris Conservatoire was held there until the early 1950s. Messiaen’s Le Merle Noir and the Dutilleux Sonatine, among others, were premiered for the Concours. (Altès, Taffanel, Hennebains, Gaubert, Crunelle, and Moyse were among the notable flute professors who had taught at the Conservatoire. Rampal eventually served as flute professor there from 1969 to 1981.) Jean-Pierre Rampal earned his Premier Prix there in 1944 at sixteen years of age after a mere eight-month meteoric passage through the school, playing Jolivet’s Chant de Linos, commissioned especially for that event. Jolivet told me ten years later that Jean-Pierre’s performance was not quite what he had written, but that it was maybe better!
For fire-safety reasons, the whole building, decorated in painted wood, was eventually restricted for the public. To this day, the Ancien Conservatoire is the seat of the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique. The old theater is still there, and the sound is still beautiful, but it is not open to the public. However, it was here that Jean-Pierre Rampal sprang into the limelight. He was about 25 and his playing was magic with his effortless virtuosity, free singing sound, and impeccable style. Nothing seemed contrived, everything flowed naturally. His interpretations seemed evident.
Everywhere he went, Rampal spent many hours looking up and copying forgotten manuscripts at a time before the photocopier. Jean-Pierre had an insatiable hunger for new material: sonatas, concertos, and chamber music. Soon, Rampal was invited to perform throughout Europe and Asia. [America would have to wait until 1958.] Meanwhile, Rampal started recording on the old wax [shellac] 78 RPM’s. The recording company was La Boîte à Musique (the Music Box), a very small affair run by an intelligent and inquisitive musicologist who was also completely taken by Rampal. One of the first records made was the Bach B minor Sonata accompanied by piano. Another recording was of the D major Mozart Quartet, both worn thin by Rampal’s young admirer.
Rediscovery of the Baroque flute tradition started with Rampal. He would present the integral J.S. Bach’s Sonatas in two evenings, a novelty in those days. It was also unusual to play the figured bass of the sonatas with cello and harpsichord. Robert Veyron-Lacroix, Rampal’s accompanist, was inventing his realizations as he went along, rediscovering a long-lost tradition.
The aspiring flutist was in awe of Rampal. He had been playing the flute a few years. He was far from imagining that a flute-performing career was an option for a middle-class youngster. Pretty soon, however, he could think and dream of nothing else. He prepared to study medicine. (As it turned out, Jean-Pierre had also.) Then, one day, Jean-Pierre and Robert came to his Lycée (high school) to break in one of their recitals. The flute fan was of course myself, and I offered to turn pages. Awe swelled to adoration. I could actually speak to him. He was easy to talk to, enthusiastic about everything, and he adored being adored. My decision was quickly made thereafter. I would continue the Lycée until graduation, but one day I would try for the Paris Conservatoire. To my own amazement, a few years later I was accepted, and the rest, for me, is history. Rampal agreed to listen to me every once in a while, but he would not take regular students. “To learn from me, listen to me,” he said.
Jean-Pierre was generous with his time, with his money, with the way he gave everything in master classes and in performance. I don’t recall having heard that he ever charged for the occasional listening he did on the road or for French apprentices. He was also modest in his own way and rarely said a disparaging word about a colleague. One day, Rampal was playing in Rome. A fidgety Severino Gazzelloni [the great Italian flutist] came backstage at intermission. Jean-Pierre asked him if there was a problem, “Well,” Severi said, “It says in the program that you are the greatest living flutist. Jean-Pierre, in my own city, that bothers me.” Rampal told him, “Look, Severi, you can come any day to Paris and say you’re the greatest flutist that ever lived, I won’t mind!” Even in America, while there were envious comments about his great technique, there were negative opinions about his sound and musicality from some other flutists. The public did not seem to share those views. [Nor did the best flutists, critics, and fellow top-level musicians.]
Marcel Moyse had a real aversion for Rampal in the early years. Perhaps it was because Rampal had never studied with the older man. Another factor may have been that Jean-Pierre had the career that Moyse did not. For reasons of character, paranoia, political circumstances or because of wartime, Moyse could never achieve Rampal’s success and charisma. Jean-Pierre ignored Moyse’s bitter comments. Every time he could, he would go out of his way to pay his respects to the old man, who finally relented and accepted the younger man’s sincerity.
Rampal blossomed at a time when the recording industry was exploding with the invention of the long-playing record. Festivals were started everywhere. After the end of the war, everyone in Europe was thirsty for new artists, sounds and repertoire. Jean-Pierre fit right in. I love his recordings, old and recent, for their supreme ease. He was very careful about the way his sound was recorded. He did not want the volume boosted or reverberation increased.
Jean-Pierre Rampal was a real bon vivant and always ready for a good time, even in difficult circumstances. One day I dropped in to the Haynes shop in Boston for a little adjustment on my flute. Lew Deveau [President of Haynes Flutes at that time] was delighted because Jean-Pierre was flying in from Los Angeles that same afternoon and was inviting everyone in sight to Pier IV, a place for lobsters “as big as dogs” according to Jean-Pierre. We went to meet him at Logan Airport. He seemed a little annoyed as his briefcase with two gold flutes and all his music had been stolen from between his feet at the airport check-in. The only face that showed no consternation was his. He said, “Let’s go have some lobsters anyway. Sorrow won’t bring them back.” He was right. When I called in the morning, someone had found the bag in L.A. with only a Walkman missing. The airline had put it in the hands of a flight attendant, who happened to be a Rampal fan, on the night flight to Boston.
He loved to perform, and the public loved him. Even at the end of his life, when things were getting difficult, he would stride on stage behind his round tummy, flute held high, with that look, “Oh, you lucky people. We are going to share a beautiful moment!”
His funeral in May 2000 at Eglise Saint-Roch was attended by Madame Jacques Chirac, France’s First Lady at the time, famous musicians, a flute choir of his former colleagues and friends, and an overflow crowd of music lovers who knew him only with their ears and hearts. When his casket was carried out of Saint-Roch, he received a spontaneous last round of applause.
Editors Notes:
Michel Debost is the former principal flutist of the Orchestre de Paris. He was also professor of flute at the Paris Conservatory (succeeding Rampal in 1982) and the Oberlin Conservatory. A frequent contributor to flute magazines, Mr. Debost is the author of The Simple Flute.
Jean-Pierre Rampal and Marcel Moyse were the most important flutists of the 20th Century. Rampal single-handedly created the career possibility for a solo flutist by averaging 150+ performances/year on 6 continents for decades over a span of 50 years; inspired numerous contemporary composers to write works for the flute, many of which have become standards in the literature; recorded more works for flute (solo, chamber, orchestral) than anyone in history; and influenced generations of talented flute players through his concerts, recordings, masterclasses, and summer workshops. He had the largest full-bodied sound coupled with phenomenal technique, a plethora of tone colors, the most wonderful array of articulations, and enormous flexibility throughout the entire range of the instrument. This enabled him to reach new depths of interpretation on the flute. His recordings stand as a testament to his greatness. I also recommend reading his autobiography, Jean-Pierre Rampal–Music, My Love.
Here’s a short list of some of my favorite Rampal recordings:
- Le Premier Virtuose Modern (early recordings 1946-1959; 3 CD set)
- Telemann Twelve Fantasias for Flute Solo
- Handel: The Complete Flute Sonatas (with Robert Veyron-Lacroix)
- Bach: The Complete Flute Sonatas (with Veyron-Lacroix, Huchot)
- Four Italian Flute Concertos
- Rossini: Four Quartets for flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon