Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, pédagogues et pouvoirs publics attendent des élèves musiciens étrangers formés à Paris qu’ils deviennent, selon une expression d’Henri Rabaud, directeur du Conservatoire, « les plus utiles propagateurs de la culture française » : par leurs déplacements, ces musiciens voyageurs assureraient la diffusion internationale de techniques musicales et de partis pris esthétiques français. Nous confrontons ce transfert culturel désiré à sa réalisation. La correspondance des institutions avec les pouvoirs publics souligne d’abord les enjeux que recouvre la venue de ces élèves en France. Les archives des écoles de musique, partiellement inédites, alimentent ensuite une base de données prosopographique identifiant les apprentis étrangers. La presse musicale et les récits de vie témoignent enfin de l’insertion de ces jeunes artistes dans la vie musicale parisienne et internationale, et permettent d’évaluer l’efficacité des mesures prises en faveur des élèves étrangers. / During the interwar years, foreign music students trained in Paris are expected from teachers and public authorities to become « the most useful propagators of French culture », according to director of Conservatoire, Henri Rabaud’s words : through moving abroad, those traveler musicians shall spread musical techniques and French aesthetical bias all over the world. We are confronting this cultural transfer to its fulfilment. First, the correspondence between institutions and public authorities emphasizes issues caused by these students coming to France. Then, the partly unpublished archives of music schools form a prosopographic data base identifying foreign young musicians. Musical press and life stories finally attest that these young artists are integrated in parisian as well as international musical life, and allow also to estimate the effect of measures in favour of foreign students.

The lecture was presented April 7, 1987. This presentation centered on the flute music literature used for the Concours of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1828 through 1893. The historical parameter began with Jean-Louis Tulou's tenure as flute professor at the Conservatoire and ended with Joseph-Henri Altes'tenure in the same capacity. The Concours is an annual performance competition to determine which students on each instrument will graduate from the Conservatoire. The majority of Concours pieces for flute during the tenures of professors from Tulou through Altes were composed by those two men. Short biographies of Tulou and Altes were presented. Discussion of interim professors Victor Coche and Vincent-Joseph Dorus was included, with focus on the role of these two men in bringing acceptance of the Boehm system flute to the Conservatoire. Tulou's fifteen Grands Solos were compared in form, key center and tonal progression. His themes and passagework are constructed to best display the conical-bore, old system-flute with small toneholes. His Solos continued to be used for the Concours, in alternation with Altes', throughout the tenures of both Vincent-Joseph Dorus and Altes. Tulou's Cinquieme Grand Solo was used for more detailed analysis and performance. Altes wrote his Solos de Concours for the Boehm system flute. Idiomatic treatment in composition of themes and passagework, as well as tonal progression in his Solos, was considered. Altes' Methode de flute reveals his views on variety in articulation, use of alternate fingerings, and musical interpretation. Those ideas are reflected in the construction of his Cinquieme Solo de ronrnwr. the example used for more detailed analysis and performance. The discussion was concluded by a comparison of the Solos of Tulou and Altes with regard to form, tonal progression, and idiomatic construction of themes and passagework.