Georges Barrère

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.

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.

While still a student, he also obtained a free-lance position in the orchestra of the Société Nationale de Musique (MSN) which premiered Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy in 1894.

It was one of the most momentous occasions in music of the turn of the 20th century, ushering in a whole new language of harmony and orchestral colour, and for the young Barrére to have been the one to play the opening notes on solo flute, was an experience like no other.

In the same year, he was appointed a flutist in the Concerts Colonne, a major Paris orchestra, of which his former classmate from the conservatory, Pierre Monteux was a violist and later became assistant conductor.