Tulou Plaisir d'amour Fantaisie

Anne Pustlauk, flute.
Toby Sermeus, piano.

2022

Jean-Louis Tulou composed "Plaisir d'amour, Romance de Martini, publiée en 1764. Fantaisie pour la Flûte op. 106" in 1858 for the concours of the flute class at the Paris Conservatoire. The melody dates from the 18th century, and has been extremely popular in France through the years. Today it is best known in Elvis Presley's version (Can't Help Falling in Love). In 1858, only two students took part in the concours. Alfred-Jean-Baptist Lemaire (16 years, 1st prize) was an average student and could not have guessed at that point in his life that he would later organise military music in Iran for the Persian Shah, found a music conservatory, compose the country's first national anthem and finance the Iranian pavilion at the Paris World's Fair in 1889. Henry Thorpe (age 13, 2nd prize), although born in Landour, India, had a comparatively unspectacular life. He was drawn to the south of France, where he first ended up in the orchestra of the Russian baron Paul von Derwies and after his death was employed in the city orchestra in Marseille.
The flûte perfectionnée in this video comes from the workshop of Jacques Nonon. Nonon worked for Tulou for a long time and opened his own workshop in 1853 after a dispute. Tulou developed the flûte perfectionnée to compete against the new Boehm flute. Even though it had a fuller tone than his earlier models, it retained the sweetness of the traditional French flutes. Nonon developed the key system further and patented his new inventions in 1854. The present flute has parts of this patent.