my review of

My Complete Story of the Flute
Leonardo De Lorenzo - Revised and Expanded Edition
(Texas Tech University Press, 1992)

I first discovered this book in Tasmania, Australia, in 1956, in the room of an aging and ailing John Amadio (see p 202), who was ending a glamorous solo career by playing first flute in the local radio orchestra. As a teenager in that isolated part of the world, I was fascinated by its history of the flute, flutists, and flute music both old and new. I might not know about the flute in America, but De Lorenzo knew about the 70 year old Galliardi (see p 235) from his home town in Italy, now playing in a Melbourne theater, and he had great respect for Melba's manager, and obligato player, the esteemed John Lemmone (see p 167).

Years later, doing research in the N.Y.P.L at Lincoln Center, one of the few places to find De Lorenzo's book by then, I lost a whole afternoon, unable to avoid browsing through the whole book again.

It is that kind of a book - not to be read cover to cover, word by word - at times fascinating, at times irritating, at times irrelevant - a singular reference for people and music considered important in the mid-century flute world - a good source for information on the previous two centuries too.

De Lorenzo (1875 - 1962), after several years of world travel, settled in the U.S. in 1910, when he became first flutist of the New York Philharmonic under Mahler. His longest tenure was in Rochester (1923 - 35) both in the orchestra and at Eastman, after which he retired to California. He was an enthusiastic teacher, a prolific composer and the kind of correspondent who would write "To G. B. S. , London, England" with a query, and get an answer (see p 307). He seems to have known or corresponded with everyone remotely connected to the flute, or, in the case of Shaw, unconnected (see p 308).

The book, as originally published in 1951, was in four parts - "The Flute", "The Performer", "The Music", and "Reminiscences of a Flutist". The current edition adds three addenda that De Lorenzo had hoped to include in a second edition. Also added is a complete index. From this, New Yorkers can quickly find that Julius Baker was once "a talented flutist of the younger American generation" and that Gerardo Levy was once "the excellent solo flutist with the Orguesta Sinfonica de Buenos Aires" - that the N.Y.P. flute section was once John Wummer, Amedeo Ghignatti, William Heim and Emil Pagano, while the Met's was H. Bennett, H. de Vries, H. Hirsh, and F. Monone (well, nobody's perfect!)

The National Flute Association is to be commended for making this revision a reality; as a true review of the book's contents and value, Nancy Toff's introduction is perfect.