Jean-Pierre Rampal

French classical flutist

• Born: January 7, 1922
• Birthplace: Marseilles, France
• Died: May 20, 2000
• Place of death: Paris, France

Regarded as one of the most influential flutists of the twentieth century, Rampal was responsible for establishing the flute as a solo instrument on the international concert scene, attracting worldwide audiences comparable to those attracted by virtuoso pianists, violinists, and singers.

The Life

Born in Marseilles in 1922, Jean-Pierre-Louis Rampal (zhahn pyehr lwee rahm-PAHL) was born into a musical family. His father Joseph was principal flutist of the Orchestre des Concerts Classiques de Marseilles and professor of flute at the conservatory there. Jean-Pierre began playing the flute with his father at the age of twelve and won a first prize at the conservatory in 1937. Nevertheless, he was not encouraged by his parents to become a professional flutist; he was steered by his mother, Andree Roggero, toward a career in medicine instead. In 1943, World War II was at its height, and France was headed by the Nazi-installed Vichy government. While in his third year at the medical school of the University of Marseilles, Rampal was drafted for compulsory labor. Instead of reporting for duty, he went underground and escaped to Paris. In 1944, after only five months in the class of flutist Gaston Crunelle, he won a first prize at the Paris Conservatory.

Rampal was solo flutist at the Vichy Opéra Orchestra from 1946 to 1950 and principal flutist at the Paris Opéra from 1956 to 1962. His concert tours from 1947 led him through Europe, North and South America, Africa, and the Far East. He founded the Quintette à Vent Française (1946) and the Ensemble Baroque de Paris (1952), and his collaboration with the pianist and harpsichordist Robert Veyron-Lacroix lasted for thirty-five years (1946-1981). Appointed professor at the Paris Conservatory (1969-1981), he was also a founder of the Summer Nice Academy and taught master classes throughout the world. As the owner of a solid-gold flute made in 1869 by Louis Lot (which he rescued from an antiques dealer who wanted to melt it down for profit), Rampal earned the sobriquet Man with the Golden Flute.

Having married Françoise Bacqueyrisse (the daughter of the harpist Odette Le Dentu) in 1947, Rampal made his home in Paris. The couple would have two children. In his later years he maintained a rigorous schedule of international performances, both playing and conducting, and he reached beyond the classical repertoire to record folk music from all parts of the world, as well as American jazz. He even made television appearances on such popular programs as The Muppet Show, thus becoming a well-known ambassador of music to the American public. Rampal died of heart failure in Paris on May 20, 2000; he was seventy-eight years old.

The Music

“For me,” Rampal once said, “the flute is really the sound of humanity,” of a man “completely free from his body almost without an intermediary.” Rampal gave renewed voice to the instrument in the years following World War II, reintroducing it to the modern repertoire and enthusiastically expanding its appeal to a broad, worldwide audience.

Rampal’s repertoire spanned works from the early Baroque period to contemporary music. His extensive recordings include flute works by such major composers as Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Joseph Hadyn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Robert Schumann, as well as by such lesser-known composers as Domenico Cimarosa, Carl Reinecke, and Saverio Mercadante. Among the many composers who dedicated works to Rampal were Jean Françaix, André Jolivet, Jean Martinon, Francis Poulenc, and Pierre Boulez, and Rampal premiered numerous works by contemporary composers such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Besides performing Western classical music, he performed in recordings of jazz music and English folk song, as well as Japanese, Chinese, and Indian classical music.

Rampal appeared in many of the world’s major musical venues, including London’s Royal Albert Hall, Paris’s Théâtre de Champs-Elysées, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the symphony halls in Boston and Chicago, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He played with all the most important orchestras worldwide, and among the many major festivals in which he performed were the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Saratoga, and Meadowbrook Festivals.

Rampal Plays Bach. Beginning with their first flute-piano recital in Paris’s Salle Gaveau in 1949 and their first international tour in 1953, Rampal and Veyron-Lacroix made regular duo appearances and produced many award-winning recordings together, including Rampal Plays Bach, released by RCA in 1974. The three-record set contains the complete works for solo flute by Bach, including sonatas identified in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalog) as BWV 1020 and 1030-35, Sonata for Two Flutes and Continuo (BWV 1039), and Sonata for Flute, Violin, and Continuo (BWV 1038). Rampal’s thirty-five-year partnership with Veyron-Lacroix came to an end in 1981, when Veyron-Lacroix retired because of ill health. In the last twenty years of his own career, Rampal collaborated with American pianist John Steele Ritter.

Claude Bolling: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano. Written in 1975 by French jazz musician Claude Bolling, the Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio is a revolutionary work that mixes Baroque and jazz styles. Containing seven movements, titled “Baroque and Blue,” “Sentimentale,” “Javanaise,” “Fugace,” “Irlandaise,” “Versatile,” and “Veloce,” the work was recorded and released in 1975. The album enjoyed a big success, hitting the top of the Billboard charts for two years and remaining there for ten years. Bolling and Rampal later collaborated on Picnic Suite (1980) and Suite No. 2 for Flute and Jazz Piano (1987).

Haydn: “London Trios” and Divertimenti. Active as a chamber musician, Rampal collaborated with numerous soloists, including two of his closest friends, violinist Isaac Stern and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Containing the four “London Trios” and two divertimenti (Op. 100, Nos. 2 and 6) by Franz Joseph Haydn, the album illustrates a good example of the three virtuosos’ common approach to playing music. Their other collaborations included concerts celebrating Rampal’s sixtieth and seventieth birthdays.

Twentieth Century Flute Master Pieces. Released by Erato in 1992, the two-compact-disc set contains contemporary flute works recorded by Rampal from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Many of the pieces were dedicated to or commissioned by Rampal himself, such as Jolivet’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra and Poulenc’s Sonata for Flute and Piano. Originally written for the violin and orchestra in 1940, Aram Khachaturian’s famous concerto was transcribed for flute by Rampal with the composer’s endorsement in 1967. Rampal’s version of the concerto became a standard part in the flute repertoire.

Musical Legacy

Rampal’s legacy was to popularize the flute for a broad audience in the second half of the twentieth century, to resurrect Baroque music for the modern repertoire, and to encourage new composers, such as Francis Poulenc, whose works have become standards of the modern classical repertoire.

Rampal also left a legacy of more than four hundred recordings—more, it is believed, than any other performer of classical works. Many were issued by such major labels as L’Oiseau-Lyre, Erato, Philips, Denon, Sony Classical, RCA, and CBS. Not only was he heard on radios worldwide, but also he was seen on many television programs, especially in France, the United States, and Japan. His editions of hundreds of flute pieces from the Baroque to the twentieth century were published by Georges Billaudot in Paris and the International Music Company in New York.

Among the hundreds of awards and honors Rampal received throughout his career are the Grand Prix du Président de la République (1976), the Léonie Sonning Music Prize (1978), and the Prix d’Honneur of the Thirteenth Montreux World Recording awards (1980). In France he was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honor (1979), a Commander of the National Order of Merit (1982), and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (1989), and in the United States he was the first person to receive the National Flute Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award (1991). Beginning in 1980, the Jean-Pierre Rampal International Flute Competition has been held in his honor by the City of Paris.

Principal Recordings

albums:Mozart: Concertos No. 1 and 2, 1953; Vivaldi: Concerto for Five Instruments in F Major, 1954; Baroque Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord, 1958; Four Eighteenth Century Flute Quartets, 1960; Bach: Orchestral Suites 1 and 2, 1962; Récital Hean-Pierre Rampal, 1963; Flute Concertos—Flotenkonzerte, 1964; Hoffmeister: Flute Concerto in G Major, 1967; Handel: The Complete Flute Sonatas, 1973; Rampal Plays Bach, 1974; Bach: Complete Works for Solo Flute, 1975; Claude Bolling: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, 1975; Telemann: Suite in A Minor for Flute and Strings, 1978; Picnic Suite, 1980 (with Claude Bolling); Haydn: “London” Trios, Nos. 1-4/Divertiments, Op. 100, Nos. 2 and 6, 1982 (with Isaac Stern and Mstislav Rostropovich); Suite No. 2 for Flute and Jazz Piano, 1987 (with Bolling); Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-6, 1980; The Romantic Flute, 1981; The Genius of Jean-Pierre Rampal, 1983; Rampal Plays Mozart, 1984; Haydn: Concerto for Flute, Oboe, and Orchestra, 1985; Mozart: Sonatas and Variations, 1986; Music for Flute and Guitar, 1988; Beethoven: Complete Chamber Music for Flute, 1990; Vivaldi: Six Double Concertos for Flute, Violin, Strings, and Harpsichord, 1990; Bach: Three Concertos for Flute, 1991; Twentieth Century Flute Master Pieces, 1992; Jean-Pierre Rampal: Master of the Flute, 1996; Boccherini: Flute Quintets, 1997.

Bibliography

Andrews, Christina. “Jean-Pierre Rampal: Looking Back a Year After His Death.” Flutist Quarterly 26, no. 4 (Summer, 2001): 42-46. A brief biography of Rampal.

Rampal, Jean-Pierre, with Deborah Wise. Music, My Love: An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1989. In this autobiography, which he wrote in his sixties, Rampal offers anecdotes about his life, family, friends, and career.

Verroust, Denis. “Still Passionate About Music: An Interview with Jean-Pierre Rampal.” Flute Talk 18, no. 5 (January, 1999): 8-13. Presents an interview with Rampal in which the flutist discusses his musical influences, his opinions about the quality of contemporary flute playing, and his comments on developing technique.