Performer Guides: Flute

A Dictionary for the Modern Flutist

A Dictionary for the Modern Flutist presents clear and concise definitions of more than 1,500 common flute-related terms that a player of the Boehm-system flute may encounter. Fully illustrated with more than 100 images, the entries contain descriptions of words related to all aspects of the flute: flute types, flute parts, flute repair, playing techniques, acoustics, articulations, intonation, common ornaments, flutemaking, flute history, flute music books, and more. Susan Maclagan has thoroughly researched and classified each term, including important flute words that have caused confusion or not been clearly defined previously, listing them alphabetically with concise, in-depth definitions. Carefully labeled illustrations for many flute types, parts, mechanisms, and accessories help to make the definitions easier to visualize. The entries also consist of brief biographies of more than 50 significant names in the flute community worldwide. Several appendixes provide further information on subjects like flute classifications, types of modern Boehm-system flutes and their parts, key and tone hole names, head joint options, and orchestra and opera audition excerpts. 

The Renaissance Flute: A Contemporary Guide

The renaissance flute, with its rich history, stunning repertoire, and mellow tone, has attracted a significant following among flutists, whether they specialize in modern flute students or historical instruments. Yet, actually delving into the study of renaissance flute has proven a challenge- there exists a confusing array of editions of renaissance music, specialized (and often expensive) facsimiles of manuscripts and early prints, and in unfamiliar notations, while at the same time there is a dearth of resources for beginners. Confronting this challenge with the first ever practitioners' handbook for renaissance flute, Kate Clark and Amanda Markwick offer flutists of all levels a clear and accessible introduction to the world and repertoire of the instrument. In The Renaissance Flute: A Contemporary Guide, Clark and Markwick cover all aspects, from practicalities such as buying and maintaining the instrument, to actual music for solo and group performance, to theory designed to improve the understanding and playing of renaissance polyphony. 

Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New Yorik

Improvising Sabor: Cuban Dance Music in New York begins in 1960s New York and examines in rich detail the playing styles and international influence of important figures in US Latin music. Such innovators as José Fajardo, Johnny Pacheco, George Castro, and Eddy Zervigón dazzled the Palladium ballroom and other Latin music venues in those crucible years. Author Sue Miller focuses on the Cuban flute style in light of its transformations in the US after the 1959 revolution and within the vibrant context of 1960s New York. While much about Latin jazz and salsa has been written, this book focuses on the relatively unexplored New York charangas that were performing during the chachachá and pachanga craze of the early sixties. Indeed, many accounts cut straight from the 1950s and the mambo to the bugalú's development in the late 1960s with little mention of the chachachá and pachanga's popularity in the mid-twentieth century. Improvising Sabor addresses not only this lost and ignored history, but contends with issues of race, class, and identity while evaluating differences in style between players from prerevolution Cuban charangas and those of 1960s New York.

The Flute Book: A Complete Guide for Students and Performers

Teachers and flutists at all levels have praised Nancy Toff's The Flute Book, a unique one-stop guide to the flute and its music. Organized into four main parts--The Instrument, Performance, The Music, and Repertoire Catalog--the book begins with a description of the instrument and its making,offers information on choosing and caring for a flute, sketches a history of the flute, and discusses differences between members of the flute family. In the Performance section, readers learn about breathing, tone, vibrato, articulation, technique, style, performing, and recording. In the extensiv eanalysis of flute literature that follows, Toff places individual pieces in historical context. The book ends with a comprehensive catalog of solo and chamber repertoire, and includes appendices with fingering charts as well as lists of current flute manufacturers, repair shops, sources for flutemusic and books, and flute clubs and related organizations worldwide. In this Third Edition, Toff has updated the book to reflect technology's advancements -- like new digital recording technology and recordings' more prevalent online availability--over the last decade. She has also accounted for new scholarship on baroque flutes; recent developments like those ofthe contrabass flute, quarter-tone flute, and various manufacturing refinements and experiments; consumers' purchase prices for flutes; and an updated repertoire catalog, index, and appendices.

The Man with the Golden Flute: Sir James, A Celtic Minstrel

The internationally acclaimed, widely beloved flutist reflects on his storied career Sir James Galway is one of the top musicians of our time, with a dazzling career that has spanned five decades and many genres of music. Now he celebrates his seventieth birthday with a look back on his incredible career, during which he has traveled around the world many times over and made countless friends, including legends from the worlds of classical and popular music. He reflects on the challenges he faced coming from the poverty of working-class Belfast and making the decision to go solo as a flutist, as well as the triumphs as he made his way to the top of his profession. Offers a rare, personal glimpse at the life of a modern musical master whose work has ranged across the musical spectrum with collaborators as diverse as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chieftains, John Denver, and Pink Floyd Includes delightful stories from Galway's career of more than fifty years Shares the challenges of touring and of melding public and private life By turns witty and informative, engaging and inspiring, The Man with the Golden Flute is a captivating read for fans of Galway and his music.

Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrere

Georges Barrere (1876-1944) holds a preeminent place in the history of American flute playing. Best known for two of the landmark works that were written for him--the Poem of Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Density 21.5 by Edgard Varese--he was the most prominent early exemplar of the Paris Conservatoire tradition in the United States and set a new standard for American woodwind performance. Barrere's story is a musical tale of two cities, and this book uses his life as a window onto musical life in Belle Epoque Paris and twentieth-century New York. Recurrent themes are the interactions of composers and performers; the promotion of new music; the management, personnel, and repertoireof symphony orchestras; the economic and social status of the orchestral and solo musician, including the increasing power of musicians' unions; the role of patronage, particularly women patrons; and the growth of chamber music as a professional performance medium. Invited by Walter Damrosch to become principal flute of the New York Symphony in 1905, he founded the woodwind department at the Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard). His many ensembles toured the United States, building new audiences for chamber music and promoting French repertoire as well as new American music. Toff narrates Barrere's relationships with the finest musicians and artists of his day, among them Isadora Duncan, Yvette Guilbert, Andre Caplet, Paul Hindemith, Albert Roussel, Wallingford Riegger, and Henry Brant. 

The Early Flute: A Practical Guide

This practical guide for flautists provides a survey of the instrument - its development, its technique, its repertoire and its literature - between 1700 and 1900. Each issue is set in a musical context and technical and stylistic matters such as fingering, tone production, articulation, ornamentation, vibrato, expression and delivery are examined in depth, applying evidence from historical sources to the standard flute repertoire. A series of case studies offers detailed interpretations of music by Hotteterre, Handel, Bach, Gluck, Mozart and Boehm. As an internationally recognised soloist, orchestral player and teacher of modern and historical flutes, Rachel Brown brings a wealth of experience to amateurs and professionals alike, encouraging stylistic awareness through an understanding of the way in which composers and flautists approached instruments of the past. Copious music examples, illustrations, fingering charts and bibliographies make this a standard reference book for both 'period' and modern flautists.

Taffanel: Genius of the Flute

The French flute player and conductor Paul Taffanel (1844-1908) was an extraordinary virtuoso and a major figure in fin-de-siecle Parisian musical life. Based on a treasure trove of private documents of Taffanel's previously unpublished letters and papers, Taffanel: Genius of the Flute recounts the rich story of his multi-faceted career as a player, conductor, composer, teacher, and leader of musical organizations. As a player, Taffanel had a rare vision of the flute as a serious, expressive instrument and his name sits at the center of the extraordinary lineage of flutists.   Taffanel was also an important opera and orchestra conductor, virtually without rival in Paris. From 1890, he served as chief conductor at the Paris Opera and the Society des concerts du Conservatoire (Paris Conservatory Orchestra) - the first time a flutist, rather then a string player, had been appointed to such key positions. Beyond his work as a performer, teacher and conductor, Taffanel was a fluent composer for the flute and wind quintet, a formidable administrator of several musical organizations, and was a major personality in Parisian musical life. Blakeman expertly places Taffanel's story in the rich political and cultural backdrop of the time, evoking Conservatoire intrigues, the Societe des concerts, and Taffanel's relationships with various musicians and major composers. Blakeman details the circumstances surrounding landmark commissions, performances, and repertoire, and weaves the details fromTaffanel's correspondence with first-person interviews and flute lore. 

Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute