Jean-Pierre Rampal, flutist

Here is a wonderful photograph of Rampal, taken after he played a concert in Palo Alto, CA.

Rampal played in the San Francisco Bay Area many times.  He was a great favorite of the public here.  But one concert I remember brought out his devilish side.

As is well-known, the Bay Area is a bastion of devotés of Early Music—indeed, the Early Music purists.  Rampal—who was extraordinarily knowledgeable about Baroque performance practices and ornamentation--often referred to the purists as la Mafia autentique.  On one of his concerts here, he performed all the Bach flute sonatas.  The next day, a local music critic, wrote a scathing review, blasting Rampal for his ignorance in playing Bach's music on a silver flute with a Boehm mechanism; adding he had affronted the public by employing vibrato.  All this, despite everything that was known today about the history of the development of the flute!!!  [Actually, there is no doubt that vibrato was used and taught in the 18th Century--but that is another story.] 

Rampal was reading this review (and reading it aloud heartily to everyone around him) while having lunch at my house, when the manager of the same concert series called to propose that Rampal return the following year to play all the flute sonatas of Haendel.  Rampal told him: "Fine, but on one condition.  If I am to return to play Baroque music again in your fair city, we must be completely authentic in every detail.  You must provide me with a horse and carriage for my arrival at the hall, and a powdered whig.  I will not bathe for three weeks before the concert.  And you must fill the streets around the concert hall with horses' merde."  Despite the remarkable list of demands, Rampal returned to play here many thimes after that.