The Paris Conservatoire concours tradition and the solos de concours for flute, 1955-1990

The Paris Conservatoire (est. 1795) is the oldest music school in the world that is still in existence, and throughout its celebrated history it has provided a government-subsidized education for countless musicians destined for top professional careers in France and the rest of Europe. The principles set forth by its founders have, in essence, remained in effect to the present time, and conservatories around the world have looked to the Paris Conservatoire as a model.;At the beginning of the twentieth century, a program began at the Conservatoire to commission French composers to write solo works for the exit examinations (Concours des Prix) of wind instrumentalists. The many works commissioned for the wind instrument concours through this program have greatly enlarged the contemporary repertoire for each instrument. The present study focuses on the exit examination solos (solos de concours) for flute that were composed for the years 1955-1990. An annotation for each solo presents a commentary on the solo's style and harmonic language, as well as information concerning its publisher, duration, difficulty rating for performance, and suitability for pedagogy and recital programming. A brief biography of each composer is also included. Short chapters preceding the annotations discuss the Conservatoire's history, its flute professors, and landmark solos de concours before 1955.;The results of this study will show a widening range of styles in the last thirty-five years--a range that embraces the conservative tonal and melodic styles reminiscent of the nineteenth-century French classic-romantic composers, the progressive tonal harmonies that employ more chromaticism and dissonance, atonal or serial works, and avant-garde styles that abandon tonality, form, or melody in the traditional sense.