Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute
Publisher: Amadeus Press, 1994, 2003
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Born just weeks after the completion of the Eiffel Tower and the opening of the great Paris Exposition of 1889, Marcel Moyse would seem destined for a performing career perfectly synchronous with the birth of the modern age, one of the richest artistic periods in France. From his early days as a member of the Ballets Russes orchestra, Moyse went on to play solo flute in Paris's major orchestras, ride the crest of the new chamber music wave, star in the burgeoning recording industry, and rule the flute class of the peerless Paris Conservatoire.
Despite the brutal effects of World War II on his Paris career, Moyse created a second professional life in the increasingly dynamic American music world as a master teacher; with Rudolf Serkin and Adolf and Hermann Busch, along with his son Louis and daughter-in-law Blanche Honegger Moyse, he founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival, and became a dominant influence on American flutists -- indeed, on many performers of other instruments, for what he really taught was not how to play the flute, but how to make music.
Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute is the definitive biography of this legendary figure. Drawing on her five years of scholarly research and well over one hundred interviews with European and American students, colleagues and Moyse family members, Ann McCutchan traces his career with particular attention to the cultural and political conditions that helped mold him, his colleagues, and his followers on both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a full and truthful portrait of this charismatic, complex and often puzzling man.
“Tackling an account of Marcel Moyse’s life and assessing his impact as a performer and teacher is a daunting task for even the most stalwart biographer. So much of the lore surrounding this figure is couched in overstatement and conflicting recollections, even from the subject himself. Ann McCutchan approaches this task with the hard-edged, yet sympathetic mindset necessary to separate fact from fiction . . . This is not only a book about a flutist. It is a compelling excursion into the life of a personality who provoked and challenged.”
Notes: Journal of the Music Library Association
"I have just finished reading and want to express my profound admiration for its author. It is a book that illuminates every corner of French musical life in the first half of this century and also brings to life the Marlboro epoch. This courageous book, with its unflinching views of Moyse, his life, and his family, will interest musicians and flutists by the richness and intelligence of its contents. Homages to the great masters are so often dry and boring. But I read this book and rediscovered the Moyse I knew and loved."
Aurele Nicolet
"Ms. McCutchan, with simple words and considerable research, has been able to bring back the Paris of the first half of our century and the complex personality of this artist who was so much a part of the French musical scene and a rebel against its establishment, a beloved teacher and sometimes a sarcastic and petty person, all this at the service of this real mistress, Music."
Michel Debost
"Ann McCutchan has written a delightful, perceptive and immensely informative biography. I think Marcel Moyse would be pleased."
Paula Robison
"Ann McCutchan has done us a true service in creating this inspiring book--not just to those who worked so closely and treasure our association with Mr. Moyse, but for all the young aspiring musicians . . . Congratulations for a work that touches and awakens me continuously."
Carol Wincenc, International Flute Soloist, Recording Artist
"I have read and reread this wonderful book by Ann McCutchan . . . learning more with each reading. My gratitude goes to Ann for her enormous research and her ability to put it all together into a book which will be intensely interesting to those who want to give ‘voice to the flute.’"
Bernard Z. Goldberg, Pittsburgh Symphony
"In Marcel Moyse: Voice of the Flute Ann McCutchan has painted a vivid, sensitive portrait of the remarkable performer/pedagogue whose legacy continues to have an inestimable influence on musicians worldwide. This book reflects scholarship of the highest order and is truly a treasure.
Bravo!"
Leone Buyse, Professor of Flute, Rice University, former Principal Flute, Boston Pops Orchestra
"This book is valuable in many ways. It offers a brief history of French music during the fascinating first half of the 20th century, with a particularly sobering account of the sufferings of the Moyse family during World War II. It introduces the reader to insights into the methods of teaching instrumental performance at the Paris Conservatoire during this time. But most of all, it provides a character portrait of a most unusual man, a man completely dedicated to playing the flute to the best of his ability and to teaching his students to do the same."
Austin American-Statesman