Born in Provence, France, the son of a Marseille jeweller, Joseph showed musical talent as a youngster and in 1913 was sent to Paris, with silver flute in hand, to further his studies.
[4] Having lost an elder brother at the outset of the war, Joseph decided in 1919 that it was important for him to return to be with his family in Marseille rather than pursue a career in Paris.
Joseph's wife Andrée considered that her husband's “patchwork quilt of positions and appointments” with orchestras and on radio and in theatres held too much uncertainty as a career path for their only child.
“He held himself very erect,” reported Jean-Pierre, “and, unlike me, he hardly moved when he played.” Of Joseph's sound, the son admired his father's “special sonority… very much his own, very ‘fleshy’ and full of emotion”.
[10] It was with justification that Jean-Pierre later referred to his father as “my link with the French tradition.”[11] After the war, Joseph remained a mentor to his son who was by then emerging as a soloist of note on the national stage.
[9] It was also with Joseph's help in 1948 that the young Jean-Pierre found the money to buy from an antiques dealer the only solid gold flute in existence made by the famous 19th century French craftsman Louis Lot.
[14] Later, father and son appeared together on recordings of Reicha's Quartet in D Major for four flutes (Opus 12), along with Maxence Larrieu and with Alain Marion, another of Joseph's students in Marseille.
Notice of his death appeared in the New York Times, 14 January 1983, an occurrence that reflects the enormous popularity in America by then achieved by the son, whose early career Joseph Rampal did so much to shape.
As signature characteristics of this style, Cohen points in particular to a "poetic approach to expressive phrasing as a foundation to develop musical artistry, creative practice methods, breath control tone, articulation, and technique, all while searching to free the artist from within."
Sheryl Cohen, Professor Emerita of Music at the University of Alabama, USA, has since extended her study by also running a Fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis in Provence entitled The Flute School of Marseille: The Rampal Lineage.