The Analysis Of Taffanel’s "Mignon’s Fantasy" And Its Performance

Claude-Paul Taffanel(1844-1908) is the most representative fluteperformer,composer and educator in the period of Romanticism in the late19thcentury.He has cultivated generatians of outstanding flute composers and founded thewell-known French School of flute. Besides his superb performingtechniques,Taffanel has made remarkable contributions to teaching flute performanceand compasing the flute works, with plenty of great flute musical works left behindfor later generations.Taffanel’s“Mignon’s Fantasy”is written based on the French composer AmbroiseThomas’ opera“Mignon”，in which the aria “Do you know that place?”is mostfamous,whichis called“the song of Mignon”. The melody is beautiful and the tune issound and wonderful, full of the atmosphere of life,which reflects the inner emotionsof the characters in the opera.The thesis mainly aims at analyzing the “Mignon’s Fantasy”through thecombination of the structural and performance analysis of the works. Frist,it startswith a brief introduction of the formation of the romantic music and its features ofmusical style,which leads to the biographical introduction of Taffanel,his performingcharacteristics and contributions to the flute. Secondly,the background of creating“Mignon’s Fantasy”and its detailed analysis are illustated. Thirdly,based on theauthor’s practice of performance and the compaison and analysis of two differentversions of two performers, it aims at learning and summarizing a proper method ofperforming which fits the author’s aesthetic characteristics.