Georges Barrère

Georges Barrère (Bordeaux, October 31, 1876 - New York, June 14, 1944) was a French flutist.

Georges Barrère was the son of a cabinetmaker, Gabriel Barrère, and Marie Périne Courtet, an illiterate farmer's daughter from Guilligomarc'h. They married in 1874. They had previously had a son Étienne, out of wedlock, in 1872. George did not regard his parents as musical although his father wished he had been a tenor instead of a carpenter. In 1879, the family moved to Paris. By the year 1886, they had moved to Épernon near Chartres.

The story goes that Étienne had a tin whistle which he discarded in favour of a violin. Georges got the whistle and later boasted that he had become a virtuoso on the six-holed instrument while Étienne was still struggling with elementary scales on the fiddle. The boys went to École Drouet, the village school and although modest, they were the beneficiaries of the new Jules Ferry laws which mandated free education for all French children. The principal of the school was a bandmaster in his spare time and Georges used to follow the band, when it marched through the streets of the town, tooting on his penny-whistle. The band members actually encouraged him and when the Barrères moved back to Paris in 1888, Monsieur Chouet, the principal, recommended that Gabriel let Georges have music lessons.

Back in Paris, Georges was required to attend cadet training as a result of the Franco-Prussian War and he became a member of a fife corps which was instructed by a student at the Paris Conservatoire. The instructor persuaded him to take lessons with his own teacher at the Conservatoire, Léon Richaud, with whom Barrère began his studies on the flute. Richaud took him to audition at the Conservatoire and although he was not accepted, he was allowed to have weekly coaching with Henry Altès, professor of flute. After a further audition, he was accepted at the Conservatoire at the age of fourteen.

Progress under the aging and traditional Altès was slow and critiques of Barrère's performances by the faculty were less than glowing. In 1893, Claude-Paul Taffanel replaced Altès as professor of flute and this Barrère later described as the turning point of his life. Instead of wasting class time on five-finger exercises, of which Altès had published a whole bookful, Taffanel taught the students how to analyze and dissect the music in order to discover its nuances. Barrère later described him as the best flutist in the world and probably irreplaceable. He discouraged excessive expression, vibrato and sentimentality. Barrère experienced an immediate improvement which was noted by his examining professors in their reports. In 1895, he won first prize in the concours.

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