Gaston Crunelle (1898--1990) was Professor of Flute at the Paris Conservatory from 1941 to 1969 and taught an entire generation of the world's leading flutists. A leading orchestral, chamber music, and solo flutist, his recordings are among the best of the 78-rpm and early LP eras. Gaston Crunelle and Flute Playing in Twentieth-Century France establishes Crunelle's place in history as one of the most important flutists of the twentieth century and shines light on musical life in France during his lifetime from the silent film era, through the German Occupation, to the changes in music and education since 1968.

Gaston Crunelle (1898--1990) was Professor of Flute at the Paris Conservatory from 1941 to 1969 and taught an entire generation of the world's leading flutists. A leading orchestral, chamber music, and solo flutist, his recordings are among the best of the 78-rpm and early LP eras. Gaston Crunelle and Flute Playing in Twentieth-Century France establishes Crunelle's place in history as one of the most important flutists of the twentieth century and shines light on musical life in France during his lifetime from the silent film era, through the German Occupation, to the changes in music and education since 1968.

This book, first published in 1974, has become the classic study of one of the most popular musical forms in early eighteenth-century France. It not only documents and examines a considerable repertoire for the first time, but it also places the genre in the wider context of both French and Italian baroque musical styles.

Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) is essentially the father of modern flute playing. Drawing on previously unavailable material from a private archive in Paris, Blakeman describes and evaluates Taffanel's life, career, and works, with particular reference to his influence as founder of the modern French School of flute playing.

Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis explores the concept of musical tonality through the writings of the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1867), who was singularly responsible for theorizing and popularizing the term in the nineteenth century. Thomas Christensen weaves a rich story in which tonality emerges as a theoretical construct born of anxiety and alterity for Europeans during this time as they learned more about “other” musics and alternative tonal systems. Tonality became a central vortex in which French musicians thought—and argued—about a variety of musical repertoires, be they contemporary European musics of the stage, concert hall, or church, folk songs from the provinces, microtonal scale systems of Arabic and Indian music, or the medieval and Renaissance music whose notational traces were just beginning to be deciphered by scholars. Fétis’s influential writings offer insight into how tonality ingrained itself within nineteenth-century music discourse, and why it has continued to resonate with uncanny prescience throughout the musical upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The art of the organist in nineteenth-century France and Belgium is a rags-to-riches story full of extraordinary problems and changes. Devastated by the French Revolution, the organ profession rose from desperate circumstances to a period of remarkable brilliance. By the end of the nineteenth century, organ playing was enthusiastically applauded and had been thoroughly integrated in the musical life of Paris. This account is not just a record of stellar events and famous names: it includes failures, all-but-forgotten musicians, and unexpected encounters. In a carefully documented study that is both scholarly and engaging. Orpha Ochse traces three major aspects of the organist's art: the development of the secular recital, the organist as church musician, and the education of organists. In addition to presenting a comprehensive view of the organ profession in France and Belgium throughout the period, she offers a new perspective on nineteenth-century music in general.

A practical, concise, and comprehensive guide for flutists.