Introduction
1.The Fifer, 1876-93
2.The Faun, 1893-94
3.The Jeune Ecole, 1895-98
4.Fin de Siecle, 1898-99
5.1900: In the Vanguard of Progress
6.The New Century, 1901-05
7.1905: Enter Walter Damrosch
8.The World of the Damrosch Brothers, 1905-09
9."A Musical Envoy from France," 1909-12
10.Yankee Entrepreneur, 1913-15
11.Alliances Francaises, 1915-17
12.Over Here, 1917-18
13."The World's Greatest Flutist," 1918-21
14."Pan Himself," 1921-26
15."The Casals of the Flute," 1926-28
16.Jubilee, 1929-30
17."I Heard The Great Barrere," 1931-36
18."The Last Word in Chamber Music," 1936-40
19."The Last Survivor," 1940-44
Epilogue: Monarch of the Flute
Appendix 1: Works Dedicated to Barrere and His Ensembles
Appendix 2: Works Premiered by Barrere and His Ensembles
Notes/ Bibliography
Nancy Toff is author of The Flute Book, The Development of the Modern Flute, and Georges Barrère and the Flute in America and is a past president of the New York Flute Club. Toff is the 2012 winner of the National Flute Association's National Service Award.
"An impressively detailed biography.... The thoroughness that Toff
exhibited as she investigated so many diverse sources of
information, and her scrupulous attention to detail and accuracy,
have paid off handsomely. She writes in a very engaging style, each
page replete with fascinating material, and we are forever indebted
to her for this landmark biography of our 'great-grandfather' of
American-style flute playing."--Walfrid Kujala, The Flutist
Quarterly
"Once again, Nancy Toff puts her thorough research and journalistic
skills to use and creates this fascinating, well-documented look
into the founding father of American flute playing. There is no
doubt that this book will be part of the standard body of flute
literature, just as Toff's other valuable writing, The Flute Book
has become."--Victoria Jicha, Flute Talk
"This is the first work of depth and stature on Georges Barrère
(1876-1944), one of the most important flutists in modern history.
Barrére, for example, premiered in Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi
d'un faune (at age seventeen, no less!); and the Griffes Poem and
Verése's Density 21.5 were composed for him. Toff has pursued solid
credible research including repeated trips to Paris to examine
primary documents ("Somebody's got to do it," she quipped with a
smile at a presentation last summer at the NFA Convention), and the
result is absolutely fabulous. --Kansas City Flute Association
Newsletter
"In this detailed view of Barrère's life, Nancy Toff weaves an
amazing musical tale of two cities, Belle Epoque Paris and early
20th-century New York...This book is a good read. Clearly and
logically organised, with really useful appendices and index, it
shows how the man and his music developed. Fascinating and
informative, I found it hard to put down. Fascinating because it
reveals how a playing musician lived and worked (so often we only
hear about
how composers lived), and informative because by the end of it, I
felt as though I too had lived through that time."--Lis Lewis,
Pan
"The breadth of Nancy Toff's scholarship is evidenced in her vivid,
detailed depictions of the two milieus in which Barrère played very
influential roles: fin de siècle Paris and American musical life
between 1905 and 1944, particularly in New York City. Through
painstaking research in Europe and the United States, she has
performed an immense service for the international woodwind
community, rediscovering and placing in musical and
historical contexts unjustly neglected but worthy solo and chamber
repertoire written for Barrère. The wealth of information provided
makes this book a resource of immeasurable value for all woodwind
players."--Leone Buyse,
Professor of Flute and Chamber Music at Rice University and former
acting principal flutist of the Boston Symphony
"Each page of this beautifully written book contains vital facts on
Georges Barrère and his milieu that are presented elegantly,
vibrantly, and succinctly. Toff presents an array of fascinating
detail regarding musical life in France and, in turn, the United
States, at a critical time."--Gail Hilson Woldu, Trinity
College
"This book is an attractive, engaging narrative that takes us all
over the sparkling Parisian musical world around the turn of the
twentieth century, showing how a high-level flutist made his way in
the world and helping us further understand how French music of
that time became so important a force."--William Weber, California
State University, Long Beach
"To write a biography of a performing artist without having it read
like a list of performance dates and venues is very difficult.
Nancy Toff masterfully accomplishes this difficult task. She
vividly brings to life not only the man and the artist but also the
times in which he lived. Events are made palpable by a wealth of
eyewitness accounts drawn from a myriad of original sources,
skillfully brought together in a fluent, accessibly written style.
While Toff's
meticulous research will awe scholars, her engaging style will
delight the general reader."--Frances Barulich, Music Division, The
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
"When Georges Barrère settled in the United States, a concert life
in the Old World mold was already in full swing. In this
meticulously researched account of a highly sociable performer's
career, Nancy Toff reveals the role Barrère played in adding an
up-to-date and New World flavor to a traditional European
repertoire."--Richard Crawford, author of America's Musical Life: A
History
"Splendid. Toff's moving epilogue provides an elegant summasion of
Barrère's importance in all these realms. But her most important
message for readers of this Journal will be Barrère's enormous
influence on flute playing, including the nearly universal adoption
of the silver flute in the United States."-Journal of the American
Musical Instrument Society
"Like other recent studies of flutists, Toff's work relies on
extensive archival research and interviews and has extensive
footnotes and bibliography of interest to flutists and other
woodwind players."--Choice
"Exemplary...Thoroughly-researched and admirably presented."
--Traverso
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