Great principal flutes - the French school #3
Episode 3: Bourdin, Eustache, Guiot, Debost
Welcome back to Grandes flûtes solos—l’école française (Great principal flutes—the French school) which I have translated and annotated for you. This week we’ll be hearing about Roger Bourdin, Jean-Pierre Eustache, Raymond Guiot, and Michel Debost. As usual, we’ll also hear some historical recordings of these great players—this week with a jazz influence, as we are invited into the Paris studios of the 1960s.
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My translation and notes for Ep. 3 begin below.
Au Coeur de l’Orchestre | At the Heart of the Orchestra
A Radio France Musique podcast series presented by Christian Merlin
Great principal flutes—the French School (episode 3 of 4)
Programme ident 00:00. Content commences 00:29
Presenter: Christian Merlin
Hello everyone, and welcome to At the Heart of the Orchestra. We finished the last episode with [a recording by] Fernand Caratgé and Roger Bourdin of Bach for two flutes. This is a symbolic pairing, as Caratgé was principal flute at the [Concerts] Lamoureux when Bourdin joined at the age of 17 in 1940. Instead of seeing him as a potential rival, Caratgé immediately took him under his wing, entrusting him, for example, with all the important solos. Caratgé and his wife had no children of their own, and the young Bourdin spent his life at their home on rue Lagrange in the Latin Quarter. In a way, he was the son they didn't have.
Roger Bourdin stayed with the Concerts Lamoureux for 27 years, playing with [Jean] Martinon, [Igor] Markevitch and the Quatuor de Flûtes [with] Pol Mule, [Eugène] Masson and Jean-Pierre Rampal. Above all, he was an eclectic musician and an improviser without equal. Do you think you’ve never heard Roger Bourdin? You'd be wrong. Listen to this - I'd be amazed if you don't know it [ed. note: perhaps the song that follows is better known to French listeners than English; in a 1991 French poll it was voted best French-language single of all time.]
Recording 1: 01:30 to 04:20
Jacques Dutronc et Jacques Lanzmann
Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille [It’s 5am, Paris is waking up]
Roger Bourdin (flute)
Jacques Dutronc (voice)
Label: Vogue. Recorded 1968.
There's a story behind this song. Jacques Lanzmann and Anne Ségalen wrote it in one night at the home of Jacques Wolfsohn of Disques Vogue. It was recorded on January 25, 1968. The text was quite poetic, the music very simple, the delivery rather monotone. But it wasn't working, something was missing. It was bare.
In the next studio, Roger Bourdin is recording Bach. The producer knows that he's a great improviser and says to him: "We're recording a song. It's good, but it's full of holes. Would you like to improvise something on your flute?" And there it is, done in one take, just as you hear it. Roger Bourdin was never paid.
Roger Bourdin was one of the first players to opt for a gold flute (until then, silver had been the most common). He taught at Versailles, and I'm grateful to Jean-Christophe Falala, principal flautist of the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Rouen, for sending me some old videos where we can see Roger Bourdin not only playing but also speaking, so that we can appreciate the incredible charisma of this man, overflowing with life and generosity, with his handsome, full face.
Roger Bourdin died at 53 of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1976, a great loss for the French flute world. Since we've just heard him improvise, let's now hear him in the classical repertoire with this Concerto in G major by Johann Joachim Quantz, the flute teacher of Frederick II no less.
Recording 2: 5:49 to 9:23
Johann Joachim Quantz
Concerto for flute in G major, Finale, Allegro
Roger Bourdin (flute)
Ensemble Musical Sinfonia
Directed by Jean Witold
Label: Vogue. Recorded 1969.
That was the music of Quantz played by the wonderful Roger Bourdin. I've now reached the 1960s, so we've come a long way since we began this program with Philippe Gaubert in 1919.
Since then, the landscape of flute positions in French orchestras had changed. At the Opéra, Lavailotte retired in 1963, and was succeeded by Jean-Pierre Eustache, born in Caen and a student of Marcel Moyse. His father was a flutist, his mother a violinist. He won the flute prize in Caen at the age of 12, and was sent to Paris—the traditional route—from where he graduated in 1948.
[Eustache's] first position was as a professor in Grenoble and it wasn't until 1960 that he was appointed as second flute at the [Paris] Opéra. To give you an idea of what that defection to the Opéra meant at the time, [the regional newspaper] Le Dauphiné Libéré published an article when he took up his position as second flute entitled "Paris nous enlève le flûtiste Jean-Pierre Eustache" ["Paris steals flutist Jean-Pierre Eustache from us"]. When Lavailotte retired in 1963, [Eustache] became principal flute.
I can still see his moustache and his angular face. I had the good fortune to correspond with him long before this programme was made. I was already fascinated by the history of orchestras and their musicians, and in retirement, Eustache had discovered that he was a researcher at heart. He produced a comprehensive history of the flute section at the Opéra.
He recorded Vivaldi concertos, of course, but Jean-Pierre Eustache, is for me [presenter Christian Merlin], the epitome of the orchestral flutist. He was magnificent both when blending with the ensemble but also when his sound had to rise up from the pit, as for example here in the entr'acte to Act III of Carmen.
Recording 3: 11:02 to 13:55
Georges Bizet
Carmen, Entr’acte to Act III
Jean-Pierre Eustache (flute)
Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris
Label: EMI. Recorded 1964.
[That was] Carmen, in Georges Prêtre's 1964 recording. It features Maria Callas, of course, as well as Nicolai Gedda, but that's not why I chose it. I wanted the flute solo by Jean-Pierre Eustache.
When Eustache joined the flute section of the Paris Opéra, it was an elite team. There was Lavailotte, there was Robert Hériché, a fellow student with Lavailotte in Gaubert's class. And then there was a certain Jean-Pierre Rampal, who wasn't even principal flute and who, in any case, ended up leaving the orchestra in the early 60s to try his luck at a solo career. He went on to become a global superstar.
In fact, when Rampal left the Opéra in 1962, Raymond Guiot, a pupil of Marcel Moyse, from Roubaix in the north, who had played first in Lille and then with the Band of the Republican Guard, arrived. Raymond Guiot was junior principal at the Opéra, but that's only because in a section of four, there's only room for one top soloist. However, he was well up to the level of a principal, an exceptional flautist and orchestral musician capable of playing anything.
Let me remind you that in those days, rehearsals were rare at the Opéra, but [Guiot] was above all a versatile musician who played in all aspects of the music scene. In other words, he was a studio musician. He played jazz with André Hodeir, with Baden Powell, with all the variety singers of the 60s and 70s, and on lots of film soundtracks, like Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samouraï" [The Samurai], Yves Robert's "Alexandre le Bienheureux" [Very Happy Alexander], and Michel Gast's film "J'irai cracher sur vos tombes" [I'll Spit on Your Graves]. [Here, we hear music from that film]: the music is by Alain Goraguer, with Raymond Guiot on flute.
Recording 4: 15:33 to 17:27
Alain Goraguer
J’irai cracher sur vos tombes, « Blues de Memphis » [I'll spit on your graves/Memphis Blues]
Raymond Guiot (flute)
Alain Goraguer (piano)
Michel Hausser (vibraphone)
Pierre Michelot (contrebasse)
Label: Polygram. Recorded 1959.
That was Raymond Guiot playing jazz flute in Memphis Blues, from the soundtrack of the film "J'irai cracher sur vos tombes".
Now that I'm in the 1960s, [we've talked a lot about] opera orchestras, so let's move on to symphonic music. At the [Orchestre] National, we still have the towering figure of Fernand Dufrêne. But at the same time that Eustache and Guiot came to the Opéra, Michel Debost arrived at the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Not yet 30 years old, he was born in 1934. In 1967, the Société des Concerts was dissolved [due to bankruptcy] and the Orchestre de Paris was created, founded by Marcel Landowski and Charles Munch. Auditions were held, with priority given to former Société members.
For the [position of] principal flute, there was no doubt that Michel Debost would be the obvious choice. He remained there until the mid-90s. His departure was unfortunately a little controversial and painful. It has to be said that he has a strong character. From that time on, he taught at Oberlin [College] in the USA, after having been a professor at the Paris Conservatoire in the 80s, where he succeeded Jean-Pierre Rampal.
Michel Debost is Franco-American; his wife is American. For me, he's one of those people who is actively evolving a style, a way of playing. His sound wasn't graceful or mignon [sweet or adorable], as we sometimes imagine the flute to be. He had an ample, powerful, generous sound, I'd say almost greedy in Mozart, for example.
Recording 4: 18:35 to 27:15
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Concerto for flute in G major K.313, 1st mvt, Allegro maestoso
Michel Debost (flute)
Orchestre de Paris
Directed by Daniel Barenboim
Label: EMI. Recorded 1975.
I said that Michel Debost, whom you heard here in the first movement of Mozart's Concerto in G major with the Orchestre de Paris, of which he was principal flutist, had a strong character, but he also had a great sense of humor. One day, Zubin Mehta was conducting a rehearsal of the Orchestre de Paris; Debost missed an entrance and said to the conductor, "Excuse me, I didn't see you.” Mehta replied: "It's the first time someone has told me I'm not clear," to which Debost replied: "It's also the first time you've conducted a short-sighted flutist."
[Next time], in the last part of my history of the great French orchestral flutists of the past, we'll get to the 1970s. As per today, Philippe Petit will be the director, and Matthieu Leroux will be at the desk.
Broadcast August 30, 20231
Academic citation style: Radio France Musique, Aug 30, 2023, Grandes flûtes solos—l’école française (3/4), Christian Merlin; tr. and ed. Elisabeth Parry, 2023. Accessed [date]. <https://elisabethparry.substack.com/p/french-flute-podcast-ep3>