In 1969 the French flute legend Marcel Moyse visited Copenhagen and gave a master class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. My former professor, Poul Birkelund, had invited his own teacher from the 1930ies Paris to teach his students, and was foresighted enough to have some of the classes recorded on open reel video tapes.

Many years later I was a student with Birkelund, and he told me about the tapes, by then (around 1985) tucked away in the basement of the academy - there were no longer any playback possibilities on the premises. I borrowed the tapes and had VHS copies made - and the result is a unique video documentation of Moyse teaching. The final 25 minutes of the material is Toke Lund Christiansen, for many years co-principal flute of the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, playing the Taffanel candenza to the first movement of the Mozart G Major concerto for Moyse.

“I am not here for this!”, Moyse says in the beginning, just after a recorder student has finished playing. And he continues to differ between the “Flûte a bec” and the “Flûte professionelle”. Those were the days …

Please enjoy a truly historic document!

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