E.

Manet, 1866
Le fifre
Muse dOrsay

Buffet-Crampon
(1850) Crampon Systme Boehm

E. Degas, 1870
Lorchestre de lopra
Muse dOrsay

E. Degas, 1868
Joseph-Henry Alts
MET

After the concert there was a champagne supper until 2

oclock in the morning, and Taffanel was the toast of the
evening, he know all sorts of parlour games, he is brilliant
at saying the most absurd things so seriously that
everyone believes they must be true. And he recounted a
little game that Taffanel had played earlier in the evening,
when a local amateur musician who had never seen a flute
with so many keys asked him to explain what all the little
gadgets on his instrument did: Taffanel looked as serious
as could be: Monsieur, they do absolutely nothing, its just
that in the past, instruments were made all of a piece, but
they did not sell very well, so the dealers thought up the
idea of adding lots of little accessories of every kind, for
the sake of embellishing the instrument, since then they
sell really well, which is understandable Take you, for
example, Monsieur, if you wanted to have a house built,
you wouldnt be happy if the architect quite simply piled
stone upon stone without carving and ornamenting
them (at this point there followed a lengthy screed on

Boehm and Mendler cylindrical flute (1877)

Paul Taffanel, (1844

1908)

B. Pentenrieder (Munich, c.1840), simple system (7-key)

Conical Boehm flute (1832 model) by T. Boehm (Munich, c.1840)

Conical Boehm flute (1832 model) by Rudall & Rose (London,

c.183847), DCM Collection #0890

Boehm flutes by L. Lot (Paris, c.1882)