L'age D'or of the Chamber Wind Ensemble
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L’Age d’or of the Chamber Wind Ensemble A document submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS in the Ensembles and Conducting Division of the College-Conservatory of Music 2013 by Danielle D. Gaudry BM, McGill University, 2000 BE, University of Toronto, 2001 MM, The Pennsylvania State University, 2009 Committee Chair: Terence Milligan, DMA ABSTRACT This document presents a narrative history of the chamber wind ensembles led by Paul Taffanel, Georges Barrère and Georges Longy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using different historical approaches, this study examines contemporaneous musical society and the chamber wind ensemble genre to explore the context and setting for the genesis of the Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents, the Société moderne des instruments à vents, the Longy Club and the Barrère Ensemble of Wind Instruments. A summary of each ensemble leader’s life and description of the activities of the ensemble, selected repertoire and press reactions towards their performances provide essential insights on each ensemble. In demonstrating their shared origins, ideologies, and similarities in programming philosophies, this document reveals why these chamber wind ensembles created a musical movement, a golden age or age d’or of wind chamber music, affecting the local music scene and continuing to hold influence on today’s performers of wind music. ""!! ! Copyright 2013, Danielle D. Gaudry """! ! ! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to all those who have been a part of my journey, both in the completion of this document and over the course of this degree. Dr. Glenn D. Price taught me valuable lessons during a time of transition in the CCM Wind Studies department. I thank Dr. bruce mcclung for his incredibly detailed and constructive feedback as a reader. Dr. Terence Milligan, my document advisor, generously provided support and guidance during my time at CCM. I would also like to thank Prof. Rodney Winther, whose passion for chamber music and continuous encouragement inspired me to pursue this topic. I am especially grateful to Dr. Ann Porter for her mentorship and for kindly offering her time and expertise when I needed it most. My family has always encouraged and supported my musical and academic endeavors; for this I remain grateful. In particular, my sister Lisa deserves acknowledgement for her excellent proofreading. I would like to express undying gratitude toward my husband Jordan and his extraordinary editorial help as the “fourth reader” of this document. Above all, I could not have written this document or achieved success in this degree without his endless optimism, indefatigable strength, unwavering love and his belief in me. "#! ! ! CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1. DEVELOPMENT OF CHAMBER WIND ENSEMBLES ..........................................8 Etymology..........................................................................................................8 Taxonomy ........................................................................................................11 Organology.......................................................................................................12 Orchestration and Instrumentation...................................................................15 Social History...................................................................................................17 2. PARIS: THE BEGINNING ........................................................................................19 Parisian Music of the 1870s .............................................................................19 Paul Taffanel ....................................................................................................23 Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents...............................25 Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents after Taffanel ........30 Georges Barrère ...............................................................................................31 Société moderne des instruments à vents.........................................................32 3. THE UNITED STATES .............................................................................................36 The Boston Scene at the Turn of the Century..................................................36 Georges Longy.................................................................................................39 The Longy Club ...............................................................................................40 The New York Scene in the Early 1900s.........................................................43 The Barrère Ensemble of Wind Instruments....................................................45 4. IMPACT AND INFLUENCE.....................................................................................49 Lesser-Known Chamber Wind Ensembles ......................................................49 Final Impressions on the Chamber Wind Ensembles ......................................50 Impact and Influence on Today’s Ensembles ..................................................52 $!! ! CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................55 APPENDIX.................................................................................................................................56 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................................62 %!! ! INTRODUCTION Embarrassed by France’s huge losses in the Franco-Prussian War, the dominance of German concert music, and the insatiable thirst of its own public for grand operatic spectacles, the musical elite of France founded the Société nationale de musique in 1871 to elevate and reclaim France’s position in art music. Although successful in its promotion of French composers—Fauré, Franck, Massenet, and Saint-Saëns were in fact founding members—the Société nationale’s goal of a new French aesthetic was complicated by these composers’ employment of instrumental models already ruled by the German masters. However, at least one unique venture emerged from this nationalist movement, unconcerned with bettering Germans at their own game. When flutist and entrepreneur Paul Taffanel created his Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents, he aimed to highlight wind players and create a culture of serious wind music, a feat not yet accomplished in any European center. The Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents, founded by Taffanel in 1879, proved to be groundbreaking in its ideology and philosophy, and greatly affected the Parisian chamber music scene. The programming and structure of this ensemble established a foundation for a musical movement, directly resulting in the creation of ensembles by Georges Barrère and Georges Longy, and also influencing the development of wind ensembles in the twentieth century. Prior to Taffanel’s ensemble, no one had ever considered wind players as equals to string players in the world of chamber music. His efforts in developing a repertoire were substantial, resulting in numerous premieres. Subsequently, flutist Georges Barrère’s Société moderne des instruments à vents, modelled after Taffanel’s group, embodied a younger, modern version of this new chamber wind aesthetic, taking up the mantle of promoting new and better music for wind players. &!! ! Taffanel’s musical influence reached far beyond Paris. At the turn of the twentieth century in the United States, established orchestras such as those in Boston and New York began recruiting wind players from Paris, knowing that these Conservatoire-trained musicians would drastically improve the level of their ensemble. Oboist Georges Longy brought his experience with Taffanel’s group to Boston; the Longy Club, based on Taffanel’s ideals, allowed what began as a unique outlet for wind chamber music to become an influential historical development in that city. Subsequently, in New York, now-ex-patriot Georges Barrère recreated his Paris world with his Barrère Ensemble of Wind Instruments, bringing this musical movement well into the twentieth century. Biographical monographs on Taffanel and Barrère provide some of the only scholarly information on their chamber ensembles; there is currently no literature linking all of these ensembles as part of a movement. In Taffanel: Genius of the Flute, Edward Blakeman devotes an entire chapter to the Société de musique de chambre pour instruments à vents, with emphasis on the factual, historical details of the first season, gleaned from the Papiers Paul Taffanel (family archives) in Paris.1 Nancy Toff’s Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrère relates details of the Société moderne des instruments à vents and the Barrère Ensemble of Wind Instruments, which she has collected through primary documents and interviews.2 David Whitwell’s The Longy Club, currently the only resource dedicated entirely to one of these ensembles provides personnel lists, programs, and newspaper articles for each of the concerts ever performed by the Longy