The French Flute School, as practiced by pupils of Paul Taffanel at the Paris Conservatoire, employed a playing style featuring a light tone and vibrato.
However, when Gaubert was questioned once about this, he redressed the balance by reiterating the word 'full' by insisting that Taffanel produced a perfectly homogeneous tone throughout the entire range of the instrument.
This stood in contrast to the mostly wooden German and English instruments, which their flautists played with a strong and steady sound.
The graduation rate under the professorships of Louis Dorus and Joseph-Henri Altès had averaged slightly less than one per year; 35 students won first prizes between 1866 and 1899.
While solo wind recitals remained uncommon, the number of orchestral concerts in Paris between 1906 and the late 1920s doubled to 1880 a year.