cover image Music, My Love

Music, My Love

Rampal Jean Pierre, Jean Pierre Rampal, Deborah Wise. Random House (NY), $18.95 (193pp) ISBN 978-0-394-56578-1

Like Rampal's expert, limpid flute-playing, this cheerful memoir, written with freelancer Wise, is fluent and enjoyable. The son of a famous flutist from Marseilles, Rampal seems to have been a superb, natural-born musician and technician from the start. Crossing over into occupied France during World War II as a lark, he was immediately accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatory; without proper identity papers he had to change hotels every week to dodge the police and the Gestapo. Giving pleasure to audiences and record buyers all over the world for the past 40 years, he is the virtuoso who has made the flute a popular solo instrument. With its shrewd observations and entertaining anecdotes about the world of classical and popular music, as well as matters nonmusical, Rampal's story will have wide appeal. Photos not seen by PW. (July)