Jean-Pierre Rampal - The Complete CBS Masterworks Recordings [56 CDs]

“L’Homme à la flûte d’or”Rampal’s Complete CBS, RCA and Sony Classical Recordings on 56 CDsBefore Jean-Pierre Rampal appeared on the music scene in the 1950s, wind players were rarely hired as soloists with an orchestra. This legendary French flute virtuoso broke through that barrier with his astonishing talent, flair, and commanding stage presence, attaining the kind of visibility previously enjoyed only by pianists and violinists. He regularly filled the world’s largest concert halls for his recitals and chamber performances. Rampal was the father figure of the flute renaissance in the 20th century which restored the instrument to the exalted position it held during the 18th.He also became one the world’s most recorded artists, commanding all the essential repertoire of his instrument but equally embracing previously unknown works, his own discoveries, jazz, pop, folk and contemporary works. Virtually anything written for the flute or plausibly adapted for it was grist for his mill. In his autobiography Rampal referred to the discography that brought him numerous prizes and awards as being so enormous that not even he could keep track of it. In 1969, he began recording for CBS, and in 1979 he signed an exclusive contract with the label. To mark his 100th birthday, Sony Classical will release in a 56-CD box set the first complete edition of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s recordings for CBS, RCA and Sony Classical.Rampal was born in 1922 in Marseille, where his father Joseph was a professor at the conservatoire and principal flute in the orchestra. When he was twelve, Jean-Pierre was given his own flute and went to the conservatory to study with his father. “He was my teacher and my hero,” he later wrote. “I wanted to do what he did.” Playing the flute was the supreme passion of Rampal’s life, as important to him as food or water. In 1945, after the liberation of Paris where he had been studying at the conservatoire, Rampal was invited to play the Ibert Concerto – written in 1934 for another of his idols, the great French flautist Marcel Moyse – on live radio with the Orchestre National de France. That performance launched a career that would span over 50 years. But the music that was already making his heart beat the fastest was Baroque, then enjoying a new wave of popularity in France. Rampal recalled: “Bach, Handel, Vivaldi & Co., with their precise, measured music, gave the public the security and sense of order that the war had taken away. You knew where this music was going and what it would do.”Immediately after the war, Rampal began turning out 78-rpm discs. In time, he would become perhaps the most recorded classical instrumentalist in history. During the LP era, he worked with more than 20 different labels before signing with CBS as an exclusive artist. Having inaugurated his CBS discography with Mozart – joined by Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider and Leonard Rose in the Flute Quartets – he capped it in 1996 with Boccherini Quintets, partnered by four distinguished French string players. In between came a vast trove of memorable releases, including much more Mozart as well as music by Bach and his sons, Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann, Rameau, Sammartini, Quantz, Benda, Frederick the Great, Kuhlau, Carulli, Cimarosa, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Paganini, Giuliani, Spohr, Rossini, Donizetti, Chopin, Dvořák, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel, Ibert, Gershwin, Kreisler, Martinů and Penderecki, with partners including Mstislav Rostropovich, Kathleen Battle, Plácido Domingo, Pinchas and Eugenia Zukerman, Salvatore Accardo and Trevor Pinnock.And those are just the classical releases. Rampal also became famous for exploring non-traditional flute repertoire as well as for being a proud trailblazer in crossover. His CBS recording of the French jazz pianist Claude Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, released in 1975, made the Billboard chart of top-selling albums for ten consecutive years, only the second time that milestone had been reached (the first was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon). This unprecedented sensation (“Sprightly and consistently romantic … the performances of the two principals are impeccable” – Gramophone) led to two highly successful sequels, Bolling’s Picnic Suite and his Suite No. 2 for Flute and Jazz Piano.Those recordings alone would have sufficed to make Rampal’s name a household word for music lovers of every stripe (a TV appearance with Miss Piggy and the Muppets extended his celebrity to children). But there is also his album of Gershwin songs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and Rampal playing European folksongs with trumpeter Maurice André; and a Rampal Christmas album, Pastorales de Noël, with guitarist Alexandre Lagoya – a regular Rampal collaborator, arranged by Michel Legrand who conducts the London Symphony Orchestra; and a haunting album of traditional Japanese melodies with three koto players (Rampal enjoyed an especially devoted following in that country); and an album of Scott Joplin rags accompanied by Tommy Johnson on tuba, Shelly Manne on drums and John Steele Ritter, his long-time musical partner, on piano. Etc. etc. etc.Rampal played for many years on what is probably the most famous flute in the world, the first gold instrument by the legendary Parisian flute maker Louis Lot. Built in 1869 for a French player who moved to Shanghai, this unique 18-carat gold somehow found its way back to Europe, and one day in 1948 the young Jean-Pierre Rampal fortuitously acquired it from a Paris antiques dealer. Soon he was dubbed “L’Homme à la flûte d’or” – “The Man with the Golden Flute”. (Later in his career he would play a 14-carat copy of his golden Lot and consign the priceless original to the safety of a vault.) Jean-Pierre Rampal became permanently associated with gold: not only for the flute he held in his hands, but also for the sound with which he captivated his listeners and, not least, for the sales figures his countless recordings chalked up all over the planet.SET CONTENTS:DISC 1:Mozart Flute QuartetsDISC 2: Bach FamilyDISC 3: Bolling: Suite for Flute and Jazz PianoDISC 4/5: Rampal and Lagoya in ConcertDISC 6: Vivaldi/TelemannDISC 7: Bolling: "Picnic Suite"DISC 8: Mozart: Flute Quartets K. 285 & K. 298/Divertimento K. 334DISC 9: Carnaval de Rampal (Showpieces)DISC 10: Schubert: Sonata In A Minor/Moscheles: Sonata concertanteDISC 11: Pastorales De NoelDISC 12: From Prague With Love (Dvorak, Feld, Martinu)DISC 13: Japanese Melodies, Vol. IIIDISC 14: HaydnDISC 15: Sonatas of J.S. Bach And SonsDISC 16: Jean-Pierre Rampal Plays Scott JoplinDISC 17: Weber: Sonatas for Violin and PianoDISC 18: Bach: Concerto for Flute, Strings and Basso ContinuoDISC 19: Vivaldi: Six Concertos for FluteDISC 20: Fascinatin' Rampal: Jean-Pierre Rampal Plays GershwinDISC 21/22: Bach: Sonatas and Partita for FluteDISC 23/24: Haydn: ConcertosDISC 25: The Flute at The Court of Frederick The GreatDISC 26: Night at The Opera: The Magic FluteDISC 27: Chants de Noel / Children’s SongsDISC 28: Mozart: SonatasDISC 29: Bolling: Suite No. 2 For Flute and Jazz Piano TrioDISC 30: Mozart: The Flute QuartetsDISC 31: Telemann: Overture/ConcertosDISC 32: Telemann Kuhlau Bach Mozart DopplerDISC 33: Kuhlau: Flute QuintetsDISC 34: Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Harp/Sinfonia concertanteDISC 35: Carulli: Flute Concerto and moreDISC 36: Concertos for Two FlutesDISC 37/38: C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Flute ConcertosDISC 39: Mozart: Flute ConcertosDISC 40: Music for Flute and HarpDISC 41: Mozart-Telemann-J.C. Bach-ReichaDISC 42: Vivaldi: 6 Double ConcertosDISC 43: Rameau: Pièces de clavecin en ConcertsDISC 44: Italian Flute ConcertosDISC 45: Mozart: Divertimento, K.334/Adagio And Rondo, K.617/Andante, K.616/Quintet, K.557DISC 46: Haydn: London TriosDISC 47: Vivaldi: The Four SeasonsDISC 48: Kathleen Battle and Jean-Pierre Rampal in ConcertDISC 49: Pla: Catalan Flute Music of the 18th CenturyDISC 50: Boccherini: Flute QuintetsDISC 51: CollaborationsDISC 52: Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 36 & 38 – Jean Pierre Rampal, conductorDISC 53: Carulli/Haydn: Guitar Concertos – Jean Pierre Rampal, conductorDISC 54: Bolling: Suite for Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Piano Trio – Jean Pierre Rampal, conductorDISC 55: Romantic Harp Concertos – Jean Pierre Rampal, conductorDISC 56: Mozart: March/Serenade K. 250 “Haffner” – Jean Pierre Rampal, conductor