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THE DOUBLE REED 29

My Long Search for Odette Anaïs Rey

Laila StorchSeattle, Washington

A woman who played the oboe in Paris

es, there once was a woman who played the oboe in the theaters here in Paris.” So spoke Raymond Dubois1 in the summer of 1948 while I sat in the back office of

the Lorée company hoping that he would agree to make an oboe for me. Without thinking too much about his comment, I nevertheless filed it away in the back of my mind. Almost fifty years would go by before I fully realized who that woman was. In the middle of the twentieth century, playing the oboe was still largely a man’s profession; it seemed that Monsieur Dubois considered me, a young American woman oboist, to be something of a curiosity which probably prompted his remark.

More than twenty-five years later, in the Spring of 1976, I spent several months in Paris searching for information about the renowned oboist and professor of the Paris Conservatoire, Georges Gillet. I was hoping to write an article about this esteemed artist whose influence had extended from France across the ocean to America. At least fifteen of his students had come to the United States in the beginning of the twentieth century to play in the major American symphony orchestras. Most of them became teachers as well, and it was their approach to the oboe that formed the American style of playing. Gillet’s pupils also filled the principal orchestra and teaching positions in France. From 1881 to 1919, the almost forty year period of his professorship, the oboists who earned their prizes in his classes are still remembered on both sides of the Atlantic: Georges Longy, a legendary name in Boston; Louis Bas, to whom Saint-Saëns dedicated his oboe sonata; Marcel Tabuteau of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Fernand Gillet, George’s nephew, are only a few of those who added to the luster of the oboe in the early part of the last century.

I began my search in the library of the Paris Conservatoire which at that time was still in the Rue de Madrid near the historic railway station, Gare St. Lazare. There, I had the good luck to meet Mlle Jeanne

Samaran, one of the librarians. When I told her that I was looking for information about Georges Gillet, she replied, “That name says something to me. I believe he played with my grandfather.” As soon as she told me that her grandfather was the great flutist Paul Taffanel (1844-1908), I knew I was on the right track.

While I sat in the library pouring over the bound volumes of the Palmarès, the books which list all the oboe laureates and their recompenses, (awards) received in the annual Concours, a striking name, Odette Marie Anaïs Rey, suddenly caught my eye. In his forty years of teaching, Georges Gillet had admitted one woman into his classes! There it stood on record and in print that Odette Marie Anaïs Rey, born October 18, 1898 at Sèvres (Seine et Oise), had been awarded a Premier Accessit (Honorable Mention) in 1916 and a Second Prix in 1917.

In 1904, the music journal Le Monde Musicale noted “with a certain surprise” that Mrs. Elise Hall, a lady saxophone player from Boston, was to perform the Chorale varié by Vincent d’Indy with an orchestra in Paris. Continuing to speak of the “feminine question

at the Conservatory,” it allowed that young ladies were beginning to take an important place in the instrumental classes at the Conservatory, “but until now, their so-called invasion has never reached the wind instrument classes.” (My emphasis.) Only a little more than ten years later a “young lady” had not only “invaded the wind class,” but had carried off a prize in oboe! A quick calculation told me that she could still be living and not more than seventy-eight years old. (All the Gillet students I later met were considerably older.) How wonderful it would be to find her and be able to ask her some questions. What was it like to be in Gillet’s class at that time? How was she treated? Thinking back on my own difficulties in being accepted as a student of Marcel Tabuteau at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia thirty years later, I could only imagine how fascinating it would be to speak with Odette.

“Y

Odette Rey during her Conservatoire years, 1915-16.

MY LONG SEARCH FOR ODETTE ANAÏS REY30

Before long I began to locate the few surviving Gillet students.2 Some had been classmates of Odette Rey; others knew of her only by hearsay. I asked each one of them what they could tell me about her and saved all of their comments, always hoping for some clue that would help me find her.

One of my first interviews was with the distinguished French oboist Myrtile Morel (1889-1979).3 He had been the solo oboe of Concerts Colonne and the Garde Républicaine. When I met him on May 20, 1976, Monsieur Morel was just a month short of his eighty-seventh birthday. We spoke in depth about his teacher, Georges Gillet. I mentioned that I had noticed there was a young woman in the class between 1914 and 1917 and explained why I found it of such historic interest. Morel had been at the Conservatoire some years earlier than Odette; he earned his Premier Prix in 1909 but he knew about her. “Oh yes,” he reminisced, “Mlle Rey, she was even a titular substitute at the Opéra! During the war the men were no longer there. Monsieur Bleuzet (1874-1941),4 who played at the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique was at the Front. I saw him there on the lines during the war. Oh, but Mlle Rey, you know “elle avait un toupet, un toupet formidable.” I didn’t quite understand the word “toupet” and he elaborated, “Elle avait beaucoup d’audace. Oh la la! ” “She had fantastic spunk and a lot of audacity.” When I remarked that all this was quite rare, Morel said, “Oh, but she earned her Prix through her merit and they accepted her as a replacement in the orchestra of the Opéra.” He expressed this opinion in a manner which left no doubt as to his belief in Odette’s competence to fill one of the most important oboe positions in Paris. When I asked if he knew what happened to her after that, he said he was poorly informed and had no information.

A few weeks later I found another Gillet student, Albert Debondue.5 When I visited him on June 15, 1976 at Chisseaux in the Loire Valley, he had just celebrated his eighty-first birthday. Debondue was the only student to ever receive a Prix D’Excellence, awarded to him in 1919 possibly to compensate for whatever unusual circumstance had caused the recall of the Second Prize he won in 1917.6 He later played with Concerts Pasdeloup, the Opéra-Comique, and is well-known for his many books of excellent etudes. I asked Debondue if he remembered Odette. “Oh, very well,” he replied. “She was from my time. We were in Gillet’s class together. I can still see her. She was as nice as you can imagine. I think she must have been the only woman who played the oboe. There was only Mlle Rey. Of course she played well. She got her Second Prix, but afterwards she left. She married and left.”

Debondue remembered that in those years Gillet did not always bring his own oboe to class but would pick up anyone’s instrument and often it would be Odette’s. He mentioned how Gillet would tease her,

twisting her reed behind her back and then letting the whole class laugh when she couldn’t get a sound out of it. “But she had a disposition of gold, always in good humor despite the little jokes that were played on her. She never got angry.” During this 1976 visit Debondue tried his best to help me locate Odette. “I don’t know what became of her. She left for America. Her father was already there. She married a cellist, but I can’t remember his name.” It was unfortunately this false tip which led me to try to trace her on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Perhaps he had confused her with her oboist father, Albert Rey, who did come to the United States shortly after the end of World War I.

For a number of years I remained in correspondence with Monsieur Debondue. In almost every one of his letters he mentioned Odette and his efforts to assist me. In July 1976 he wrote: “I have waited several days to answer you, thinking that I would manage to remember the name of the husband of Mlle Odette Rey, but alas, even though I have racked my brain, there’s no use; I have not been able put a name to this gentleman. It is true that all this is sixty years ago and my memory is getting hazy.” Again, a year later, along with good wishes for the New Year 1977, he added, “As for Mlle Rey, still nothing. What a memory, alas.” But on April 25, 1977 he wrote, “I am very happy that you have found my friend Nazzi, as well as the married name of Odette Rey. Just these last days I had the feeling that her husband was called Roux. Is she still living? I really hope so because she was a charming comrade. If you locate her, I would be happy to send her a little word...I remember Odette’s father very well. He left for America as soon as the war of 1914-1918 was over, and we never saw him again.”

The “mystery” of Odette’s married name had indeed been solved by Michel Nazzi,7 another of her classmates. Michel Nazzi received his Premier Prix at the Conservatoire in 1917 the same year that Odette won her Second Prix. Both performed the Concours solo, Ballade by Amédée Reuchsel. Michel Nazzi went on to play oboe in Concerts Colonne and the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in Paris; in 1921 he became solo oboe in the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. From 1926 to 1961 he was the highly regarded English horn player of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. My friend and colleague from the Casals Festivals, flutist John Wummer, who had also played in the Philharmonic, told me that Nazzi was living in retirement in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Nazzi’s daughter had once studied flute with Wummer and he gave me their address in Mexico. Eventually I received a cordial reply from Nazzi dated February 2, 1977. In order to explain my interest in Odette as well as in Gillet, I must have referred to my own situation, as he wrote: “What a pity you had to be a victim of prejudice! For being a woman and loving the oboe. I am not surprised of the hard time you had in being

THE DOUBLE REED 31

admitted to Curtis in 1940. Mr. Tabuteau was not only prejudiced against women but to his own colleagues arriving from France to the United States as well. Concerning Mlle Rey, yes, she was the only woman oboist in those days to attend the Paris Conservatoire. She discontinued her career for marriage. Became the spouse of Monsieur Roux, a cellist. Regretfully, I never saw her again after I left France. Her father, Albert Rey, was a pupil of Gillet before Morel. He was a friend and colleague. Died in New York in 1935.” Although this contact failed to lead me any closer to Odette Rey, it did enable her two classmates, Michel Nazzi and Albert Debondue to get in touch with each other again after so many decades.

In Boston I met two other Gillet pupils who had been at the Conservatoire well before Odette. Fernand Gillet, Georges’ nephew,8 was just a few days short of his ninety-fourth birthday when I visited him in October 1976. I asked my standard question, “Do you know anything about Odette Rey, the only woman student in your uncle’s classes?” “Yes—Rey—I knew her father.” “What happened to her?” My question was quickly dismissed as he said with a slight chuckle, “She got married and that’s all. That was her finish.”9

This reminded me of comments I used to hear in the 1940s. If the question was asked about a talented woman performer who had studied at one of the leading schools of music, “What ever happened to Mary So-and-so?” the response would usually be, “Oh, she got married.” As Fernand said, it was the end. We have only to look at the movies of that period when marriage inevitably signaled the finish of career aspirations for every woman and hailed the beginning of “living happily ever after” in the role of a homemaker.

I also saw Louis Speyer10 who played English horn in the Boston Symphony Orchestra for forty-six years from 1918 to 1964. At eighty-six he clearly remembered “Odette Rey, the daughter of Albert Rey. Yes, Albert Rey was a good oboe player. He was an extra at the opera when they needed four oboes. They had only four oboes in my time because Gillet was not playing there anymore. There was Bleuzet. A great oboe player.” Speyer was as disparaging as Fernand Gillet about any chances Odette may have had for continuing a career begun during the war. Once the war was over and the men came back, she was not needed. “About Odette—I don’t know what happened to her. I was in the Army then. I don’t think she did too much playing because you know at that time (1917) people would laugh.”11

Forty years later and after another war, perhaps people would not laugh. But in 1956 while I was playing in the American Wind Ensemble of Vienna, a review from Germany struck me as something one might say of a strange beast seen in a zoo. Following our concert in Regensburg, the Mittelbayerische Zeitung

wrote: “Noteworthy is the choice of wind instruments by young women, something we rarely meet with...I have never encountered a woman master oboist.” (my emphasis!) (Bemerkenswert dabei ist bei uns selten anzutreffende Wahl von Blasinstrumenten durch junge Damen...Eine Meisterin auf der Oboe ist mir noch nicht begegnet.) Even in the mid-1950s, a woman oboist was still regarded as a curiosity!

In October 1983, seven years after I had heard what these old students of Georges Gillet could tell me about Odette, I made another visit to Debondue. We spoke of his friend and fellow-student, Michel Nazzi, and talked again about “Mlle Rey.” Again I thanked him for his help throughout the past years but had to admit that by now I had almost given up hope of ever finding her. However, I decided to try one more avenue. In December 1983, combining Debondue’s incorrect clue about America and her married name of Roux learned from Nazzi, I placed an ad in the International Musician, the monthly publication of the American Federation of Musicians:

Odette Rey Roux, oboist, born Paris 1898, Conservatoire 1917. Father, Albert Rey, lived in New York. Any information appreciated. Please write: Laila Storch, 4955 Stanford Ave. N.E. Seattle, WA 98105.”

This plea brought no answer and I finally accepted the idea that I would never find Odette Rey. I could not know that only a few months earlier on June 23 in this same year of 1983 she had died in Paris at the age of eighty-four. Nor could I guess that almost two decades later the article about Georges Gillet would lead me to Odette’s family through the yet undreamed-of “magic” of the Internet!

FIRST CONTACTS WITH ODETTE’S RELATIVES

It was at the end of 1996, a full twenty years after I first saw the name of Odette Rey, that a surprising letter arrived in the mail. The name on the envelope, Elizabeth De Angelis of Picadilly Ct, Newburgh, New York meant nothing to me. But it appeared that its contents might provide a clue which could lead to the reopening of a long dormant “case” as in a detective story!

Elizabeth De Angelis’ letter of December 8, 1996, began with:

“Madam, I am writing to you because your name came up when I was looking for some information on the Internet for a friend of mine. She has been trying to locate a great-uncle of hers who emigrated to the US from France years ago. The only information she has was that he was a very good oboe player


and that he studied at the Paris Conservatory...His name is Albert Rey. The Internet gave me a lot of information about Georges Gillet where Albert Rey and his daughter’s names were mentioned. The head of the Oboe Society gave me your name as a person to contact for more information...”

She then gave me the name and address of her friend, Mme Gysells-Rey, and closed with:

“If you have any more information as to his family whereabouts, she would surely appreciate it. For some reason, the family grew apart a long time ago and she would like to reach out and find them. Thank you for your time and hopefully you can help in this matter.”

I had no idea that the International Double Reed Society had put my article about Georges Gillet on the Internet! Immediately I wrote to the “friend in France,” Mme Gysells-Rey, explaining that there was not much I could tell her about Albert Rey but that I had a great interest in finding some trace of his daughter, Odette Anaïs Rey. I told her about some of my own experiences as a woman oboist and how I had tried to find out about Odette from the old Gillet students I had met in the mid-1970s. I also mentioned that I had asked various musicians in the United States if they remembered Albert Rey, always hoping they might lead me to his daughter. I had gathered only a few details but at least it was something to pass on to Mme Gysells-Rey.

The eminent bassoonist Sol Schoenbach of the Philadelphia Orchestra, had warm memories of Albert Rey. “Sure, Al Rey, I knew him well. I used to buy cane from him. He was a lovely, lovely man. Rey was the second oboe player in the New York Philharmonic who made the reeds for Labate12 and a lot of other people. He had a sort of business on the side and I would buy things from him and he was the first person to talk to me about cane growing in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He was such a nice man and he put up with me. I was just a kid, you know. I can still see him while I talk to you.” John Mack told me about an oboist named Irving Cohn who imported cane and knew Rey; Cohn said that the greatest reed makers he had ever known were Marcel Tabuteau and Albert Rey.

On October 23, 1977, Josef Marx, oboist and owner of McGinnis and Marx Music Shop and Publishing Company, had written to me, “I think I met Albert Rey when I first came to New York. He was the reed maker for Bruno Labate. I believe that when Rey left the Philharmonic he went to Texas to try to grow cane there.” Now there were at least two people who thought that Rey was involved with growing cane in Texas.

Although the New York Philharmonic had no listing of Rey as a permanent member of the Orchestra,

several people spoke of his playing there. He may well have done so on a substitute basis. Rey would have been about forty-five or forty-six years old when he came to the United States and it may have been more difficult for him than for the other Gillet students who established playing careers here. Albert Rey seems to have depended largely on his expertise as a reed-maker and on selling oboe supplies to make a living. As one of the many Gillet graduates who came to the United States, not all of whom were first chairs players, he nevertheless contributed to the establishment of the French oboe tradition in America.

In Paris I once saw an old Odéon catalog from March 1905 which listed several oboe solos recorded by “M. Rey Premier Prix du Conservatoire:” Don Pasquale, Donizetti 3579; Villanelle, Flégier 3584; Third Solo, Ch. Colin 3580, and Historiette, A. Petit 3583. This could have been Albert who was awarded his Premier Prix in 1895. However, the question is complicated by the fact that there was another Rey, Louis-Théodore, born in Troyes 1879, who received a Premier Prix in oboe in 1894 only one year before Albert. Unfortunately, first names were rarely listed on programs or in catalogs and the same confusion applies to the registers of instruments bought at the Lorée factory. There are a number of entries for oboes purchased by “Rey,” but was it always Albert or sometimes the other Rey of whom even less is known? In 1913 “Rey” bought a 1906 system Lorée oboe No. CC 59 for an élève and only two years later in 1914, a complet (full system) No. FF 14. This was the period when Odette was learning to play and it would be logical to believe that her father chose an oboe for her.

After communicating my few bits of information to Mme Gysells-Rey, I could not help but wonder if it was possible that after all these years I would finally find out something about Odette? Two months went by. In early March 1997 I received a cordial reply from Mme Gysells-Rey explaining her relationship to Albert. Albert was her father’s uncle, the older brother of her grandfather. They were a family of musicians. Her own father, André Rey, had been encouraged by Albert and had spent his life teaching music to the young people in Sens, their hometown. On one of his return visits to France, Albert had given her father several wind instruments, a flute, an oboe and a clarinet, which she still venerated as reliques. The Reys of Sens wished they could find out something about the end of Albert’s life in New York and what happened to the son he had there.

For the first time I began to learn a little about Odette’s family life. Mme Gysells-Rey’s father, eighty-eight years old at the time she wrote, remembered his cousins, Odette and her brother, Jacques. Mme Gysells-Rey’s older sisters told her that Pierre Roux and his wife Odette had visited their home in Sens. They knew that both Odette and her husband had played in the

THE DOUBLE REED 33

Théâtre de la Gaîté Lyrique in Paris. I thought back to what Dubois had said in 1948 and felt this news merited my sending a note to his granddaughter, Anne de Gourdon, at Lorée. “Something very interesting concerns Odette Anaïs Rey, the only woman oboist ever admitted to the Conservatoire by Georges Gillet. I believe your grandfather, M. Dubois, was the first person to ever mention her to me, but not by name, and now after all these years I finally have a clue and probably the opportunity to meet members of her family. Will tell you the fascinating story later!”

I expected to be in Paris at the end of May 1997 to join the Wayne Rapier and John de Lancie oboe trip. Mme Gysells-Rey promised to search for their “lost cousins,” the children of Odette. This all led a little over a month later to an arrangement with M. and Mme Gysells-Rey to meet near the Trocadéro and go together to the apartment of Odette’s daughter, Jacqueline Roux. The thought of finally meeting someone so close to Odette put me into such a state of anticipation that I arrived long in advance and had to stop for coffee at a corner café to pass the time.

Jacqueline Roux received us graciously in her attractive apartment. She spoke quickly, sharing her memories, and often jumping from one member of the family to another. She never knew her grandparents as Albert had left for Amérique and had remarried with une française there. They had a son but no one knew his name. Her own grandmother, his first wife, was from a noble family who wanted nothing to do with Albert because his father was a candy maker. “Maman always told us that her father, Albert Rey, was ‘un grand cuisinier’ a wonderful cook. It was his

passion to make a dinner every Sunday. If he were here today he would be a great chef. He taught his daughter to cook. My grandmother couldn’t cook an egg.”

Jacqueline told me that Odette had a brother, Jacques, and an older sister, Marthe. Odette’s father had taught her to play the oboe and made reeds for her. Odette’s husband Pierre Roux, was a cellist, but his Premier Prix at the Conservatoire was in Solfège and Harmony rather than cello. He and Odette were not in the same class at the Conservatoire but met there. During the war when there were fewer and fewer musicians in Paris, students at the Conservatory were called on to play at the Opéra. Later on, both Pierre and Odette played in the movie theaters “pour gagner des sous” (to earn a little money) . Jacqueline showed me pictures of Odette as she appeared during her student days in 1916-17. She was an unusually beautiful young woman. “Maman was so beautiful. Très belle—superbe.” Many of the Conservatory professors were her great ‘admirers’ but it was a fellow-student, the cellist Pierre Roux, whom she married and with whom she shared her long life. M. Roux continued to play, mostly light music on the piano. Jacqueline never heard her mother play the oboe. She thought that the instrument had been sold and that Odette gave her music to a student. None of her Paris Conservatory medals had survived in their home. Odette, however, used to sing melodies from all the operas she had played.

Jacqueline described the situation after the end of World War I. It had seemed preferable for Odette’s husband to take the opportunity to enter into a family manufacturing business

Odette at about age seventeen.

Pierre Roux and Odette Rey as students.


which assured them a comfortable living. While the career of an orchestral musician in Paris was, at best, very uncertain even for a man, it had nothing to offer a woman. Odette became the mother of three children, two daughters, Denise and Jacqueline, and twelve years later a son Pierre, who had only recently passed away in 1997. I looked at family albums which showed pictures of the growing family taken on happy vacations at the beach and in the mountains. Odette herself lived a long and apparently happy life in the company of her husband and children and was able to celebrate her diamond wedding anniversary in 1979. She died in 1983 at the age of eighty-four and a half, still a beautiful and distinguished looking woman.

Now I had learned something about Odette’s life and had been given several fine photographs dating from her student days. I could have been tempted to say, alas, despite the excellent training she received under Gillet, her time as an oboist was lamentably short. For her day this was hardly unexpected. Without having been able to talk to her in person, there was no way of knowing how she really felt about giving up the oboe. I felt there were too few musical details to adequately describe even this “abbreviated” career. And so the project languished, waiting for some still nebulous information that could help me come closer to telling her story. Four more years went by and we entered the next century before there were any new developments.

MORE OF ODETTE’S RELATIVES

In October 2000 I received a two-page fax, again from a person totally unknown to me, a certain Gil Snyder of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin. The contents were puzzling yet intriguing. Page one (in English) consisted of only a few lines:

Dear Ms Storch: “I am trying to contact you to see if I can obtain information about Albert Ray (sic) and a book you are writing on him. Could you please call me at the number above or e-mail me at the address given. Thanks for your response. Gil Snyder.”

The second page (in French) began with:

Salut Gil! Can you please do me a small favor? Three years ago an American woman writer came to Paris to interview my aunt (the sister of my mother.) This American was writing a book about my maternal great-grandfather: the father of my grandmother Odette Rey, in other words the grandfather of my mother Denise. He was a well-known musician in the United States and apparently made some recordings. I am unable to get in contact with this writer. Perhaps you can find her telephone number. Please ask if the

book has been published. If it has, I would like to buy a copy. It should contain old photos of my family. I know absolutely nothing about this Albert Rey who is in effect the great-great-grandfather of Alexis Jouffa, another musician “in exile” in the United States. The author lives in Seattle.

There was no signature on this fax. Who exactly was it from? And who was Alexis Jouffa? I hastened to reply to Professor Gil Snyder to clarify some of the misconceptions in the fax from his friend—or as I later found out—cousin.

Dear Prof. Gil Snyder,I received your fax yesterday and am most

interested in another ray of light (excuse unintentional pun) from the famille Rey. I tried to phone you at the number given but the message was that you are not reachable by voice mail this quarter. Anyhow, I would really like to talk to you as it is a rather long story, but will try to give you a few facts!

First of all, I am primarily an oboist (not really a writer, although I have written a number of articles on oboe history and am currently involved in a big project on a French oboist who became very famous in the United States, Marcel Tabuteau. That will probably reach book proportions!) So I am unfortunately not writing a book on Albert Rey. The person I have been extremely interested in for over twenty years is, however, Odette Rey, who is apparently the grandmother of the person making the inquiry. I can’t really write everything down about the difficulty I have had to “track” Odette Rey, who was the only woman student of oboe in the class of the most famous professor of the oboe world, Georges Gillet. I came across her name in 1976 while doing an article about him.

Eventually in 1997 through someone who contacted me via the Internet (cousins of Albert Rey who still live in France) I was able to meet Jacqueline Roux, one of Odette’s daughters. I gather this is the aunt of whom your friend speaks. My object has always been to write an article about Odette Rey but it has been put off because I hoped to fill in a few more “missing links.” Your friend may certainly contact me directly either via e-mail or fax. If you leave a phone message as to when would be a convenient time for you, I’ll be happy to return your call.

Sincerely yours,Laila Storch

I never did speak with Gil Snyder. When the telephone rang in the morning two days later, it was François Jouffa calling from Paris. In a conversation carried on half in English, half in French, he unraveled the “mystery” of the faxes and explained his relationship

THE DOUBLE REED 35

to Odette, Albert Rey, and Alexis.François Jouffa—journalist, radio and TV

commentator, known in France for broadcasts about popular music (French chansons, pop, rock, folk, American blues) with thirty books published on these subjects, producer of films and extensive recordings of ethnic music made on site in South America and Asia—was indeed the grandson of Odette Rey. His phone call was followed by several e-mails containing fascinating information. I was surprised to learn that he had studied at the University of Washington “where you were a professor. The world is small. It was in 1962-63. I already had a TV program on Channel 9 and on the radio, KRAB. I lived at the home of my cousin, Emile Snyder, a professor of French, whose son Gil, is a professor of architecture at Milwaukee. My professor of music was Bob Garfias who you knew. Mainly I took courses in journalism...Albert Rey—Odette Rey—the story continues. My son Alexis, born in 1976, is studying at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.... Is there a music gene in the family?”

François had talked with his mother, Denise,13 the oldest daughter of Odette, who confirmed some of the facts I had already heard from her sister Jacqueline. But other details about Odette’s early life now emerged that opened a new window on her “story.” François described how Odette and Pierre (his maternal grandparents) met at the Conservatory before they worked at the Opéra. He told me about the photo his mother had of the musicians of the Opéra where one can see both of her parents. “It is in front of the opera, or rather in the back—the stage door, l’entrée des artistes. It still looks the same except the two lampposts you see in the photo are no longer there. In this photo you will see Odette Rey and her future husband seated at her feet. An amazing photo where the oldest men look like Landru.” This reference sent me to the Internet to find out about Henri Landru, a notorious French Bluebeard-type eleven-count murderer of women in the early twentieth century. He did indeed sport a beard similar to those in the photograph.

François’ e-mail continued:

If Odette and Pierre played at the Opéra when they were so young, it was because most of the musicians had left for the Front. The war of 1914-18 caused millions of casualties. In France as in Germany, it was the young men and above all, women, who had to go

to work on the farms, in the factories, the offices—and also the Opéra. These historic reasons explain that my grandmother was the first woman oboist at the opera—which in no way reflects on her talent. Why did my grandmother Odette not have a career? You noted correctly that she was the only woman in her oboe class at the Conservatoire which was an event at that time. Without doubt to be the only woman oboist at the Opéra at age seventeen was also a rarity. But the “place” of women in that era destined that she would step aside from music. Odette became a mother at age nineteen. Her daughter Denise was born on June 15, 1918. Her future husband Pierre, born on January 4, 1900, was only eighteen. Odette and Pierre were therefore very young when they had the responsibilities of being parents.

A situation which would shock no one today, was at that time considered a disgrace by both of their families. Furthermore, there were social and religious differences which contributed to their being rejected by the two families. The spirit and courage which had enabled Odette to hold her own in Gillet’s oboe class now carried her through the difficult beginnings of her life with Pierre. They soon married on January 2, 1919, but even then received little family support. Odette’s second daughter, Jacqueline, was born on October 20, 1919, so that there were now

two baby girls. For a while Odette continued playing in the theaters. (Dubois would probably have remembered her from that time.) Odette’s mother, Marie, was the only person ready to help. She stayed with the little girls at night while Odette and Pierre fulfilled their musical engagements. After Marie died from cancer in 1921 at the early age of fifty-three, there was no one to take care of the children. It was probably then that Odette stopped playing. Her third child, Pierre Jr., was not born until May 5, 1932, thirteen years later.

As her grandson summed it up,

She had to raise her family. Her career was therefore short. Her life as a young woman was not easy–rejected by both families—her father left everyone and went to the United States—brother Jacques Rey was a soldier at the Front—mother died. For a woman formed as an artist—a musician and performer—it would have to be difficult. Her husband continued at the Opéra, but as a supplementary player the pay

François Jouffa (Odette’s grandson) in 1987 with his son, Alexis, then ten years old, on Radio France

show “Disques D’Or.”


was very low. In order to earn a living, late at night after the opera performances ended, he went to play in the orchestras of the brasseries on the grands boulevards. He also played in the orchestras for the silent movies.

François remembered his grandfather telling him about the famous Gaumont Palace (now torn down) at the Place Clichy in the 18° arrondissement. Pierre Roux was very fond of playing for the silent serials and mysteries with their exciting stories which continued from week to week. There were also the dramatic silent films of D.W. Griffith. As a child, François had found these stories about the movies and cafés very exotic and more interesting than the opera. He also remembered his grandfather as

always playing the piano. I have a photo of him with my son Alexis as a baby, both of them at the piano. My grandmother didn’t play any more but she loved to sing the melodies from the operas she knew. Later on Pierre Roux went into the manufacture of metal products. I always knew my grandparents as des grands bourgeois français, well-to-do members of the French bourgeoisie.

François had heard several versions of what happened to their musical instruments. “According to my mother Denise, Odette sold the cello because it took up too much room and Pierre didn’t play very often. According to my aunt Jacqueline, Odette sold her oboe while she was still quite young because they didn’t have much money. According to my mother Denise, she entrusted the valuable oboe to her father, Albert Rey, when he returned to France for the communion of her daughters, asking him to sell it for a good price in the United States. She had no further news of either her father or the oboe.”

When François was in his teens, he took his grandmother to some popular concerts. “Odette had broad-minded ideas about music. In 1960 she applauded the debut of our French Elvis Presley, Johnny Hallyday, while most older people despised him. I also remember taking my mother Denise and my grandmother Odette to the concert of the Beatles in Paris at the Palais des Sports in 1965. I believe she was the oldest person in the hall and that amused her very much.”

Shortly after receiving these e-mails from François Jouffa, I followed his suggestion of telephoning to his mother, Denise. In a very generous and friendly manner she replied to my questions, recounting and elaborating on some of the same bits of family history. She told me the story of how Odette’s father had her try the oboe to see if she could blow “normally.” If she was talented she would make an acceptable sound but if she blew and it came out “quik”, then it would not be worthwhile. At that time they lived in a house at Ville-d’Avray not far from Sèvres where Odette was born. Odette’s sister Marthe who was five years older, played the piano very well but could do nothing professionally as she had une maladie nerveuse. Marthe was brought up by the noble grandparents in their château until about the age of twenty when she moved to a type of sanatorium for the rest of her life.

The aristocratic grandparents were very strict and conventional and never really approved of Albert Rey. The story was that he had run off with their daughter, Marie. We can only guess how they may have met. Marie was said to have had a fine voice and sang some operatic roles, but according to the family, more in amateur circles than as a professional. Perhaps the young conservatory student played for some event where she sang. Her noble parents, as many others of their class, shared the prejudice of that era against “the stage.” It was simply not considered a respectable

profession. But even worse in their eyes, was that Albert’s father had been in the business of making des Berlingots—a type of multi-colored candy popular at one time. Albert and Marie were given a grand wedding but afterwards were only allowed to visit the château-dwellers once a year to wish the noble family “une Bonne Année.”

Suddenly in the middle of our telephone conversation Denise said, “Today is maman’s birthday—October 18. She would have been one hundred and two years old. She was born in 1898.” I had given no thought to the date. Was it a coincidence that I called on Odette’s birthday? Denise asked when I would next be in Paris and invited me to visit her. She suggested that I should come in May in good weather. Before that, she planned to be away, either in Marrakech,

Morocco, or in Cannes, as she found the cold and the pollution in Paris too unpleasant.

Having learned a few more family details, I thought

Albert Rey, (Odette’s father) Premier Prix, Paris Conservatoire 1895.

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perhaps I could coordinate them with my notes about Albert Rey’s Conservatory years. I knew that Albert Rey was born in Gien (Loiret) on March 21, 1873. He was already eighteen when he entered the Paris Conservatoire. For the first two years he received positive comments from Georges Gillet about his work. After his mid-year exam in January 1892, for the Colin Solo No. 1, Gillet wrote a quite favorable evaluation: “Makes the effort to do well—could achieve good results.” (s’efforcer de bien faire - pourra donner des bons résultats.) And in June 1892 at the end of one year in the Conservatoire when he played the 4th Concertino of Gustave Vogt, Gillet’s remarks were even more favorable: “Has made progress and correction in his manner of playing. Should show results next year.” Considering that Gillet was never lavish with praise, this was a good beginning. It therefore seemed strange when in the following year of 1893, Gillet’s comments abruptly became less encouraging. He seemed to feel that Rey was not progressing and after his performance of the Brod G minor Solo on Monday June 19, made the brief note, “Is not progressing - does what he can.” (n’est pas en progrès - fait ce qu’il peut). Was there some reason for Albert’s lack of progress? Suddenly I realized that if Marthe was five years older than Odette who was born in 1898, it meant that in 1893 Albert was the father of a baby while he was still a student in the class of the very demanding Professor Gillet. Gillet was said to have considered raising children incompatible with playing the oboe which takes one’s total dedication and concentration. I remembered hearing from Mme Tabuteau that Marcel Tabuteau who tried in every way to pattern himself after his teacher Gillet, did not want to have any children.

A year later in 1894 Gillet noted that Rey was “at a standstill.” (élève stationnaire). Nevertheless, he gained a Second Prize for his performance of the Premier Concertino in G Minor of Georges Guilhaud. And in 1895 on July 29 at the age of twenty-two, Albert was awarded the Conservatoire’s highest honor of a First Prize for his performance of the Cinquième solo de Concours, Opus 45, by Charles Colin. By this time it is quite possible that Albert already had a second child, if, as the family believed, Odette’s brother Jacques was three years younger than she was. That despite Gillet’s opinions, Albert Rey completed his four years of Conservatoire training and won his Premier Prix when he had the responsibilities of a young family, is evidence of his determination and ability.

At this point I knew I must return to the Archives Nationales in Paris and try to fill in the missing pieces of Odette’s story. In May 2001 I found material both about Odette’s Conservatoire years and her work at the Opéra. Between running to the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, I met François Jouffa and his mother, Denise. We were then able to talk at length about some of the facts I was discovering.

ODETTE AT THE CONSERVATOIRE

Odette Rey entered the Conservatoire in the Fall of 1914 only a few years after the school had moved to the Rue de Madrid. This new location was a big change from the historic site of the rue Bergère and rue du Faubourg Poissonnière where her father, Albert, and the other oboists of his era, Louis Bas, Georges Longy, Louis Bleuzet, Marcel Tabuteau, Myrtile Morel, and Fernand Gillet, had studied. It represented a jump to modernity, not only in the buildings newly remodeled from a former Jesuit monastery, but also in the administration. In 1905 the distinguished composer Gabriel Fauré had become the director and many were looking to him to instill new life and more liberal views to the school. There was hope that he would change the rigid adherence to tradition and make room for new music and innovative composers like Claude Debussy, André Messager, and Paul Dukas.

One thing soon became clear. Whatever Fauré’s intentions were concerning the curriculum, he was not about to tolerate any nonsense on the part of the students. Printed notices of the Disciplinary Rules for the Conservatoire national de musique et de déclamation were posted on the walls and the students were warned:

1. Not to write on the walls, not to disturb the statues or the furniture and especially not to carve initials nor to spit on the floors and throw papers.

2. Students must arrive five minutes before the hour for class and leave as soon as the professor finishes the class and must not under any pretext loiter around in the Conservatory outside of class time.

3. Even justified absences may be communicated to parents if deemed advisable.

4. It is absolutely forbidden to smoke inside the Conservatory or stand in the quarters of the concierge or the anteroom of the Director’s office without being summoned. The students must not form groups and sing or shout in the staircases and vestibules or disturb the classes in any way.

5. Any infraction will be noted and observations made to the delinquents who may be called before the Director.

Despite strict rules of behavior, things were changing. In April 1915, Vincent d’Indy conducted Conservatoire students in a concert which included Debussy’s Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane for Harp and Strings and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 for piano, violin and flute of J. S. Bach. And just a few months before that a woman was admitted to the oboe class.


WAR YEARS AT THE CONSERVATOIRE In the Fall of the year 1914, the beginning of

World War I was already having a serious effect on the Conservatoire. A letter addressed to the Director of Beaux Arts on February 19, 1915 explained that Fall classes had resumed on Monday October 5 but because of the “state of war, difficulty of communication, and occupation by enemy troops of a part of the land,” it seemed recommendable to show indulgence to the absent students and place a certain number of them on regular leave of absence. The men who in the course of fulfilling their military duty found it impossible to return to school were put on “war leave” (congé guerre).

Already on October 8, 1914 a chart was compiled giving the usual number of students in the various classes and the actual number present at the return to classes. The largest discrepancies were in the voice and piano classes where the proportion of men to women was about one to six. There were still seventeen flutes but only nine clarinets, and two bassoons. The brass fared even worse with one trumpet left and no trombones at all. Many professors were absent but in the oboe class which regularly consisted of twelve pupils, the professor was present. However, there were only five oboe students left; seven were absent for military service.

Because of all these disruptions, the Concours for Admission to specific classes were rescheduled; examinations for acceptance into the class of Georges Gillet did not take place until December. A well-ordered and demanding “Concours,” it was set to begin on Thursday, December 17, 1914 at 10:50 in the morning. The registered candidates performed in the following order:

1. M. Nazzi, Léon-Michel, born in El-Kseur, Algeria, January 14, 1896

Concerto by Grandval2. Mlle Rey, Odette Marie Anaïs, born in Sèvres,

(Seine et Oise) October 18, 1898 (The only time given names appeared in the records)

Third Solo by Colin

Other competitors were Messieurs Bassot and Clairet.14

The Jury which gathered that morning in the “Salle des Examens” to listen to the Concours for admission to the wind instrument classes was headed by the Director of the Conservatoire, Gabriel Fauré. There were twelve representatives from the faculties of piano, strings, composition, and winds, including the illustrious piano professor Isidor Philipp; the composers André Wormser and Paul Hillemacher, who wrote music together with his brother Lucien, using one signature, P. L. Hillemacher;15 violinist A.

Lefort, Gabriel Parès of Garde Républicaine fame, the highly respected oboist Louis Bas, and the bassoonist Letellier père. One of two missing members already in military service was the flutist and conductor Philippe Gaubert.

Certainly it was a formidable group of musicians for a young girl oboist of that, or any, day to face! The vote was nine voices for M. Nazzi and seven for Mlle Rey. The next oboist down the list, M. Clairet, received five votes. Therefore, the two chosen to enter the class were M. Nazzi and Mlle Rey. Of the twelve students officially in Gillet’s 1914-15 class, seven were already on war leave. Among them listed as Militaire en congé, were several young men whose names are familiar to us: Roger Gauthier (Minneapolis and Philadelphia Orchestras in the 1920s), Marcel Honoré (Chicago), and Albert Debondue (Opéra-Comique and Concerts Pasdeloup). As the newest student, Mlle Rey, now just a little over sixteen years old, was added to the bottom of the list. She was also enrolled in the solfège class of Mlle Hardouin.

Congé guerre after the name of Gillet’s fourth-year student M. Barguerie, was followed by “died for his country” (mort pour la patrie). For a time the words “congé guerre” were written by hand after each student’s name, but soon a purple ink stamp supplanted the writing. Before long there would be almost nothing but long rows of purple stamps on the enrollment pages of all the wind classes; for the trombones, a complete column of purple, with not one young man remaining in class.

During these difficult war years, letters were constantly being exchanged between the Under Secretary of State of the Beaux Arts and the Director of the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et Déclamation. The Direction of the Conservatoire, very preoccupied by the question of the number of students in the classes, was struggling to keep the status quo to make sure the Conservatoire would continue in its traditional way as soon as possible after the war ended. A communiqué of July 30, 1915 from the Under Secretary to the Director of the Conservatory stated that “The clarinet class has lost ten students out of twelve.” A proposal was made to augment the class with three or four younger students and take the same measure for other classes. The Director of the Conservatory replied, “Concerning the clarinet class, I have the honor to inform you that nine are mobilized, not ten, and therefore three students are still in the class. In other words, there are no vacancies. I have the feeling that any modification in the number of students in this class and other wind classes would cause complicated problems after the end of hostilities. If the class is augmented, then vacancies would only occur when someone gets a Premier Prix.”

The necessity of making up losses in the classes due to mobilization, even the suggestion of

THE DOUBLE REED 39

admitting younger students, probably contributed to making the precedent-breaking admittance of a young woman into the wind classes a less shocking move than it otherwise would have been. Furthermore, the young lady in question was someone who already played well and had been musically prepared by her father, himself a Premier Prix from Gillet’s oboe class.

EXAMS AT THE CONSERVATOIRE

It is unfortunate that the rapports (reports) of the professors from which so much can be learned about Gillet’s earlier students, are missing from the years 1913-1921. One cannot be sure whether the records were simply not completed by the professors or were lost. This includes Odette’s time at the Conservatoire and deprives us of any comments Gillet may have made about her abilities or progress. During this period of World War I the number of students continued to dwindle. Gillet himself was often absent from Paris. In a series of letters to the Director, Gabriel Fauré, he explained that his house in Bessancourt, an hour north of Paris by train, had become unlivable; he was worried about the poor health of his wife; he, too, was not very well and therefore had to spend more time in Biarritz. By the Spring of 1918 there was only one oboe student left, Jean Moulinet. Gillet wrote to Fauré that he did not feel justified in returning to Paris to teach his class composed of “un seul et unique élève.”

But if the rapports are lacking, there are a number of other records that did survive which make it possible to follow Odette’s progress. During her brief years at the Conservatoire Odette learned and played in very competitive situations, an impressive number of oboe compositions, many of which are still considered essential to the development of repertoire and style. At one of her first examinations in June 1915 preliminary to the prestigious annual Concours, she played the Solo by Paladilhe. This short piece written for the Concours of 1898, the year that Gillet’s nephew Fernand at barely sixteen years old, received his Premier Prix, had become instantly popular. Combining elements of bravura and simple charm, it continued to serve as a measure of every oboist’s level of accomplishment.

One cannot emphasize too greatly the special place the annual Concours of the Paris Conservatory occupied in the music life of Paris. This was no ordinary exam held behind closed doors and listened to by a few bored teachers. Rather it was a public event eagerly awaited and attended by music lovers, friends, relatives, and interested fans of the various professors and their students. The Conservatoire reports, precise as always, tell us that on “Tuesday June 1, 1915, at 9:30 in the morning the examining committee for wind instruments met in the Little Hall to hear the students and decide which of them would be judged worthy to compete for the prizes.” Mlle Rey, whose age was listed

as sixteen and two months as of January 1,16 played the Paladilhe in the presence of the composers Fauré, Maréchal, Wormser, Büsser, Balay, P. Hillemacher and other distinguished professors. On the basis of her performance, she was “admitted to compete” in the annual Concours. After less than a full year of study at the Conservatoire, even with the great Gillet, it would scarcely have been possible for her to reach the level of playing a piece of this difficulty without the training she had been given by her father, Albert.

Other students who took part in this same exam were Michel Nazzi who played the first movement, Allegro non troppo from the Fourth Concerto in D Minor of Vogt and Maurice Louet who played two movements, Larghetto and Allegro of the Handel Sonata in G Minor. For their playing of the sight-reading piece by M. Rougnon (long-time solfège professor at the Conservatoire) both M. Louet and Mlle Rey received passing marks. Both were admitted to compete in the Concours that summer which took place on Friday, July 2. Maurice Louet gained a Second Prize for his performance of the required work (the Handel Sonata) but Odette would have to wait for one more year before achieving any special recognition. Rather strangely, another first- year student, Michel Nazzi, was not allowed to compete, the reason given that he was not a French citizen. (He was born in Algeria).

The letters between the Beaux Arts and the Direction of the Conservatoire continued to proliferate. Written on poor quality paper of the war years they have turned yellow, brown and crumbling, while archival Conservatoire documents surviving from the era of Cherubini in the 1820s remain in beautiful condition. An important sector of the Conservatoire was the drama department (Musique et Déclamation!) The secretary was worried about the drama classes and how they would be able to cast their scenes. He asked whether a call had gone out for help from former students. Then there was a problem about participation in the orchestra which was reserved for laureates, (those who had already received a Prix.) Due to the almost total absence of wind instruments, all played by men, the professors decided to study nothing but works requiring only string instruments. Another question was that of replacements for professors who were mobilized. The Conservatoire was also concerned about what would happen after the end of the war. There would be no chance to make up for lost time. “One does not reestablish in a few weeks the voice of a tired singer nor the finger agility of an instrumentalist who has not played for four years.” With classes suddenly overcrowded by those who had been demobilized it would be impossible to admit new students. How should the number allowed in the various classes be adjusted in order to allow for the gradual reestablishment of normal size enrollments?


For the present, with the dwindling numbers of students, attendance at classes was becoming a more important issue. The Conservatoire had always kept strict account of absences. Three consecutive absences in the same month not explained by credible illness and a student would be dropped. As a government sponsored school, the Conservatoire charged no tuition and the authorities quite naturally felt authorized to monitor procedure. The Under Secretary had become dissatisfied with what he felt was a lack of compliance with the rules and regulations concerning absences. In his opinion, the laws “are not being observed, as the roll sheets show numerous absences and there are very few dropped students.” He did not like the general tone of the medical excuses which did not reflect “a real character of sincerity.” He asks “M. le médicin of the Conservatory to visit the students at home to make sure that the illness they claim really keeps them in bed or at least in their rooms. In the event the doctor of the Conservatory ascertains that the illness does not prevent the student from going out, then it is understood that he should attend all his classes.” Many cases involved singers who were contracted in advance to take part in Conservatory performances but then wished to accept more lucrative jobs.

The next exam for the oboe class took place on “Wednesday, January 19, 1916 at 9:00 A.M.” when both Nazzi and Mlle Rey (now age seventeen and three months) played the Deux Pièces of Charles Lefebvre, another work which became a “standard.” On May 22, 1916, there again came the moment to decide who would enter the Concours. Michel Nazzi, Mlle Rey and René Bassot all played the difficult Légende by Louis Diémer which will be remembered as the solo for the Concours of 1904 when Marcel Tabuteau received his First Prize. All three were admitted to the Concours. The piece chosen for the 1916 Concours was the Églogue, Opus 63 by Henri Büsser. After a rather reflective Andante opening, the Églogue launches into a rollicking 9/8 Vivo movement in mood rather reminiscent of the Allegro from the Lefebvre pieces. Odette was awarded a Premier Accessit for her performance of this piece. Along with all of the solos, Odette no doubt had to follow Gillet’s strict routine of scales, thirds, the Barret and Brod Studies with transpositions, plus other etudes, so that she was receiving the traditionally thorough oboe training of the Conservatoire.

A year later on Tuesday, June 26, 1917, Odette took part in her third and final Concours. As always, the rules of correct deportment were posted for the attending public. “Entry into the hall is strictly prohibited during the execution of a composition,” and “The audience is requested to refrain from any sign of approval or disapproval.” There were seven contestants who all played the Ballade by Amédée Reuchsel. Reuchsel dedicated this solo to Georges Gillet; from the style of

the writing it would appear he had a good knowledge of the oboe’s capabilities and even of Gillet’s difficult Études pour L’Enseignement supérieure du Hautbois. (Studies for the Advanced Teaching of the Oboe.) Certainly he uses the total accepted oboe range of that time from low Bb to high third octave G. The opening Andante section is introduced by a very effective oboistic flourish marked Andantino un poco recitativo. In his article The Paris Conservatoire Concours Oboe Solos: The Gillet Years (1882-1919), Tad Margelli mentions the “Allegro full of supreme technical challenges; slurred octave scales abound, and there are passages worthy of the most intricate etudes of Ferling and Gillet.” Adding to these challenges, oboists may question Reuschel’s decision to end the piece with a long third octave trill from E to F#—fortissimo! Odette Rey was awarded a Second Prize for her performance of this demanding work.

Only a few months later Conservatoire reports from the Fall of 1917 show that at the beginning of her fourth year of studies, Odette Rey at age eighteen and eleven months, was “dropped for absences” (rayé pour absences). As we have seen, being “dropped” from the class rolls of the Paris Conservatoire was certainly a serious matter. In the case of Odette, her grandson’s account of her early life enables us to understand the reason for her absences in late 1917. Students were rarely, if ever, dropped for unsatisfactory work. Sometimes a foreigner returned to his own country or someone just did not reappear at the new Fall school year such as the ten-year-old American boy pianist, Ernest Schelling. A Japanese oboist, Hiromassa Furuya, stayed for only one year in the class of Gillet from 1884-85. The remarkable thing is that an oboist from Japan came to study with Gillet at all. And then there was such a highly qualified musician as the Belgian, Clement Lenom, later well known as second oboe to Georges Longy in Boston. In August 1887 following the July Concours, he was “dropped for insubordination during the distribution of the prizes.” Lenom, twenty-two years old, already had a Premier Prix from the Brussels Conservatory. After two additional years of study in Paris he may well have anticipated receiving a higher award than a Premier Accessit from the Conservatoire.17

MLLE REY AT THE PARIS OPÉRA Now we must consider another aspect of Odette’s

short career as an oboist: her professional activity with the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra. In 1913 and 1914 in Paris, as in other music centers of the world, there were frequent performances of operas by Richard Wagner: Les Maîtres Chanteurs, Parsifal, Tristan, Lohengrin—all were given during these years. As late as May and June 1914, Valkyrie and Parsifal were performed four times, and a full month of opera in July included

THE DOUBLE REED 41

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Parsifal and Lohengrin along with Rigoletto, Faust, and Les Huguenots. After that, there was no more Wagner. In August came the announcement of “Mobilisation générale.” The performance of Les Huguenots which should have begun the season could not take place. No operas were given in the Fall of 1914, nor during the whole year of 1915. One of the first signs of a renewal of activity was the matinée of December 19, 1915, a concert conducted by Henri Büsser in honor of Camille Saint-Saëns. Regular performances began again in 1916, for the most part matinées. A typical program consisted of an overture, one act of an opera, and sometimes ballets or a group of arias.

The Opéra was central to the music life of Paris and to be a part of its orchestra was a highly regarded position for any musician. In 1896 Georges Gillet had joined the Opéra Orchestra as solo oboe and English horn at the high salary of 3600 francs a year.18 By now in 1914 the regular oboe section of the Opéra, Louis Bleuzet, Fernand Gillet, Charles Gaudard, and Auguste Gobert, had all been mobilized. Gaudard and Gobert occasionally played for an evening performance but Bleuzet and Gillet were “on leave” during the whole time of the war. For the many operas that required large numbers of personnel, not only in the orchestra pit, but also stage bands, the administration had to turn to gifted students at the Conservatoire. That Odette Rey entered the orchestra of the Opéra in early 1916 while still a second year student speaks for her ability and competence as a performer.

Much administrative material from the Paris Opéra survived the war years; one can consult the payroll list of the “auxiliary musicians” with its extra column for “signing in” when they collected their fees.19 Beginning in January 1916 and throughout the next few months until the end of May, “Mlle Rey’s” signature appears in large and clearly delineated round letters as “O Rey.” Other oboists occasionally on the payroll were her classmates Lucien De Nattes and Maurice Louet, as well as the much older Maurice Mercier. The name which appeared more often, however, was that of Odette’s father, “Mr. Rey,”who signed in simply “A. Rey.” During the same months Odette’s future husband Pierre Roux was in the section of violoncelles. Lily Laskine, who later became a famous soloist, was the harpist. Only five years older than Odette, she had been the first woman admitted into the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra at age sixteen.

While we cannot know exactly which oboe part Odette played for any particular opera, it is possible to have a good idea of the repertoire during the time of her employment. In the month of January 1916 there were nine performances, all of them matinées: a mix of single acts from Rigoletto, Samson et Dalila, Faust, La Favorita, and even the Nile Scene from Aida, made up most of the programs. Works lesser known to us today were Le Chant de la Cloche by Vincent d’Indy,

Paladilhe’s Patrie, Étienne Marcel by Saint-Saëns, and Mlle de Nantes with music by Charpentier, Cesti and Lulli. At the matinée of January 6, 1916, a tea was served to benefit the “Society for Aid to Wounded Soldiers.”

Patrie by Émile Paladilhe, familiar to all oboists for his ever-popular 1898 Concours Solo, had its first performance in 1886 when the composer was forty-two years old. It was an immediate success. The lengthy reviews, liberally illustrated with black and white lithograph pictures, can still be seen in the archives of the Paris Opéra. Patrie was often performed during World War I. Perhaps the tale of love and treason, the revolt in 1568 against the Duke of Alba and the Spanish Occupation of the lowlands, had a special appeal in this later time of turmoil. It was based on the same poem by Victorien Sardou and Louis Gallet that Verdi had used earlier for his opera Don Carlos.20

Although the wartime programs were printed on very inferior paper, still they bravely carried ads for fine chocolate. “La Marquise de Sévigné, 11 Blvd de la Madeleine, has created special bonnets militaires for the young girls who celebrate the Feast of Saint Catherine.21 The cream-filled chocolates contained in these “hats” add their exquisite taste to the interest of this gift.” And again, appealing to the patriotism of the opera-goers, “La Marquise de Sévigné sends packages tied with ribbons of the glorious colors of France to all sectors of the Front giving the maximum quality for the maximum weight.”

When Odette played at the Opéra the conductor was often Henri Büsser (1872-1973) who had been on her examination committee in June 1915 and whose piece Églogue she would soon play in the 1916 Concours. During February and March there was little change in the repertoire.

A few novelties were added: the symphonic poem, Les Landes, by Guy Ropartz, and Act II of The Girl of the Golden West. In April several complete operas were given for the first time since the beginning of the war: Samson et Dalila, Rigoletto and Faust, but always in the afternoon. The ever popular Thaïs reappeared in May along with an unusual work by Déodat de Séverac, Fête des Vendanges, inspired by the Occitan-Catalan culture of his native Languedoc. There were no performances in the summer of 1916.

When the opera reopened in November 1916 night performances of complete operas resumed. Occasionally there were wartime interruptions. A Zeppelin alert during an evening performance on December 11, 1916 caused a cancellation of the last act. It would get worse. By early 1918 there was an “Alert” caused by the Gothas, the German bomb-dropping planes that had been hitting London. They were now menacing the 4° arrondissement and the public was “invited to retire to the corridors and the lower areas of the building.” The alarm finished at 11 P.M. but the

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performance did not resume. In March a matinée was held despite the bombardments and by April the old favorites, Faust, Rigoletto, Samson, Aida, and Thaïs were back on stage.

During the winter season of 1916-17 while Odette was still in the Conservatoire, her name no longer appears on the roster of opera musicians. The oboists Gaudard and Gobert who were regular members of the Orchestra, appear to have been available to play more frequently and even Bleuzet put in an occasional appearance. Albert Rey continues on the payroll through June 1917, now always playing English horn. It was at the end of June 1917 that Odette took part in the Concours and won her Second Prix at the Conservatoire. (See earlier section, “Exams at the Conservatoire.”) Her father must have been in the hall to proudly applaud her achievement. When exactly did he leave for America? His colleague, Michel Nazzi, said he left as soon as the war was over, in other words, in November or December 1918. What were really his reasons for leaving? Of course he knew about the many former Gillet students who had already gone to the States and found work. French and Belgian oboists were still greatly in demand and his main goal may have been to improve his financial situation. One of Odette’s daughters had spoken of the unhappy state of his marriage. Did he leave with a woman from France or was the person he married after Marie’s early death, already living in the United States? Was he disillusioned by the fact that Odette was dropped from the Conservatoire and did not continue for her First Prize which it seemed she surely would have won? How strongly did he feel about her abilities and what were his hopes for her future career as an oboist? Did he regret to see her with such early domestic responsibilities even as those he himself had experienced? These and many other questions remain unanswered.

What we do know is that by the season of 1919-1921 Albert Rey was playing oboe and English horn in the Cleveland Orchestra. In the Fall of 1918 the city of Cleveland was trying to organize its own orchestra. Because of the flu epidemic there had been a ban on all types of public performances. In November with the declaration of the armistice, the end of the war in Europe, and the lifting of the ban, plans could go ahead. The Cleveland News announced that most of the musicians would be from Cleveland

itself “with the possible addition of bassoons and oboes from out of town.” Despite this notice, the first concert of the orchestra was given with a total of only fifty-four players and lacked a second oboe and bassoon. Between December 1918 and May 1919 the conductor Nikolai Sokoloff made several trips to New York to engage more musicians for the orchestra in order to bring it to a total of seventy-four players. It was especially urgent to fill the oboe and English horn positions. Albert Rey must have been hired very shortly after his arrival in the United States. He is listed as playing oboe and English horn in the Cleveland Orchestra from 1919 to 1922. Philip Kirchner became principal oboe in the same year and remained until 1947. Although the Cleveland Orchestra was making progress, it was not yet on the musical or financial level of Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. The season lasted only twenty-eight weeks and there were few ways for the musicians to augment their salaries, which, except for principal players, were quite low. We do not know why Albert left after two years, but he may well have felt that he would have more opportunities in New York.22

PARIS VISIT - 2001

Meeting François Jouffa in Paris in May 2001 was for me the “touchstone” that brought together the many facets of Odette’s life. Although he had not

previously known much about his grandmother’s early life with the oboe, he was quick to understand the difficulties she had faced in that era when all the odds were against her. With the mind of a journalist he saw the drama of someone who would today be considered a “modern woman,” admired for her independence and courage, instead of shunned. On May 14, François took me to meet his mother, Denise, Odette’s first-born daughter, the older sister of Jacqueline Roux. Denise, an elegant and beautifully dressed woman of almost eighty-three, received me in her lovely 16° arrondissement apartment near the Eiffel Tower. Surrounded by exquisite antique furniture, art objects and delicate bric-a-brac,

she served tea and cakes while speaking in her lively manner of early family memories.

A little later she decided to show us a home movie which had been made by her father, Pierre Roux. For two hours I watched a stream of moving pictures which

Pierre Roux and Odette with their three grown chil-dren, 1978. Standing L. to R.: Denise Boucard,

Pierre Roux, Jr. and Jacqueline Roux.


covered a forty year cross section of Odette’s life with her family. There were scenes of impressive clarity from early black and white films of 1923 to those of the 1960s in color. Now I could see Odette and her two daughters, later joined by their chubby little brother, Pierre. There was only sixteen months difference in age between the two girls so as they approached the age of twelve they celebrated their communion together. It was the occasion for a large and festive family gathering. There was even a glimpse of Albert Rey who came back from New York for the important event. This was probably the only time he saw his two granddaughters and the last time he saw his daughter with whom there remained a certain estrangement.

As we watched the movie, a running commentary took place between François and his mother, with an occasional question or request for clarification from me.

Denise: “There is my father’s cat.”François: “Can’t you lower the stupid background

music? I never saw these films. This is 1923. Formidable! Voilà! There is Odette, Pierre Roux and the two girls. How old were Odette and Pierre then? Only twenty-five and twenty-seven? It’s extraordinary! These old films are impeccable—seventy years old. Videos last ten to fifteen years maximum. Someone should make a DVD of this film. How beautiful Odette was.”

Denise: “Yes, très belle. Her face had the air of a medallion; people would stop in the street and artists wanted to do her portrait.”

We arrived at the day of the Communion in 1931 or 1932 and tried to find Albert in the crowd.

Denise: “That is maman’s brother Jacques standing there. It’s a good thing there are no words.”

François: “It gives maman the blues to see all that. Look at the pictures of the girls! How well dressed they are all in white and wearing hats. You can see Odette’s Pekingese—even the dogs. You have looked for someone for twenty-five years and now you see her in cinema! Here are some scenes where they have put titles like in old Charlie Chaplin films. Not many families have such a film record. Who is Edouard?”

Denise: “A family friend. He had a house not far from us.”

François: “Who do you think was doing the filming? All my life I always saw my grandfather Pierre Roux with a camera. Was it your father’s camera?”

Denise: “Oui, Oui. They rented a house in the country about sixty miles from Paris. Now you see them playing tennis. Maman plays like a man. She had a different way to serve.”

François: “I am really moved to see that. Look at the fat baby still in diapers. That is Pierre Roux, Jr. Denise was like a second mother to little Pierre. Sometimes they rented a house at La Baule, a beach

on the Atlantic ocean in Brittany. Look how all the women are dressed almost in chador but there is Odette in a one-piece bathing suit. When was this? About 1933? Now there are millions of people and houses on that coast. But you know before the congé payé in France, before 1936, not many people went to the seaside. There were no vacations for the workers–only Sundays free. Now they have five or six weeks of paid vacation and a thirty-five hour work week.”

To François’ question of whether going to the seaside meant that they were rich, Denise replied, “We never felt we were rolling in wealth but we were comfortable. Father had a business with his brother. For some years we lived in Vaucresson near Versailles. When I was seventeen maman had a country house built in Normand style at Moret-sur-Loing near Fontainebleau. They kept it until 1947. It’s very pretty there. All the painters came to that area. The house was named La Pommeraie after the many apple trees on the property. Odette was a superb gardener. She kept rare tropical birds in a cage especially warmed for their comfort and in advance of her time, she raised her own chickens in order to have fresh bio-eggs. She liked to cook and was known for her Bouchées à la Reine and Homard à l’Américaine, as well as des gâteaux extraordinaires!”

In the late 1940s and 50s the Roux family traveled to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Odette visited the museums while Pierre usually stayed in the car and watched the poodle dogs she had then. She was always vivacious, full of a zest for life, and very tolerant. She was modern in spirit and dressed in a youthful manner.

François: “Here we can see Odette feeding the pigeons on the Piazza San Marco in Venice and there she is in a gondola with the two poodles in her arms. In the winter they went to ski in the mountains at La Clusaz in Haute Savoie. It is common now but was very rare then for French people to go skiing. Look at the men—what they’re wearing. Something like golf pants for skiing!”

Odette had learned to drive and for her fiftieth birthday in 1948 she was given a car. During the 1950s they traveled to Sweden and Norway by automobile. Odette’s two daughters were always very attached to their mother. After they all moved back to Paris in 1955 Jacqueline and Denise kept apartments directly opposite their mother’s until the end of her life and that is where they still live today.

At one point during the afternoon I mentioned to François that when I had been at the Cimetière Montparnasse the day before looking for the graves of Saint-Saëns and Clara Haskil I suddenly noticed a tomb with the name, Yves Jouffa. “My father. Another coincidence.” I had jotted down the words on the stone. “Président--” François completed the title—de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (of the League of the

THE DOUBLE REED 45

Rights of Man.) “Unbelievable! In your search, you encounter everyone, even my father. He died just two years ago. Yes, it is a rare name of Russian origin. We are the only ones here in Paris.”

We spoke a little more about Albert Rey. Odette’s brother Jacques always kept in touch with his father and went to see him when he was ill in the hospital in New York. After Albert died Jacques continued to write to his widow in America. They had a son who was about five years old at the time of the communion. Denise saw the boy then but could not remember anything about him. François told the story of a trip that Jacques Rey and Odette’s husband, Pierre Roux, (François’ grandfather), made together in the 1950s flying to New York with an organized tour group. By that time they had lost contact with the “American” family and did not plan to look for them. On their second day in New York while out walking on Fifth Avenue, who did they meet on the street? Albert’s widow. She was much younger than Albert and lived quite a while longer than he did. They did not see the son who was married by then. This son was the cousin that the Gysells-Rey family had really wanted to find. François clearly remembered hearing about that trip as he had been given the sky-blue Pan Am flight bag. In those years when not many people flew, it was seen as very “snob” to have an airline bag. Teenagers who frequented the Paris ice skating rinks found it exceedingly smart to carry their skates in these bags.

The afternoon had come to an end. I had not achieved my earlier “dream” of meeting Odette Rey in person, but now I had seen her in film and almost felt I knew her. And I was happy and grateful for the time I had been able to spend with her two daughters and her grandson. François began to speak with a journalist’s overview. “It’s like a detective story, a Sherlock Holmes tale. You should write everything you told me. How you first saw Odette’s name. How you visited the old students while searching for Gillet’s history and how you learned that this young girl had played at the Paris Opéra. How you eventually met my aunt Jacqueline and how it was thanks to the Internet that you found us. That I had lived near the Lakeside School in Seattle where my cousin Gil Snyder was a classmate of Bill Gates. Odette’s grandson was near you in Seattle,

even if not exactly at the same time. You could have met him there. All kinds of coincidence. Extraordinaire! And all the research! Even more than that, it is a sort of quest for the “Grail.” Today it is normal to find women in the professions everywhere but one does not always realize how it was. The fact that as a woman, you embarked on this quest for Odette, to uncover her story—that is what is interesting! This is the story you should write.”

The day may soon come when the denotation “woman oboist” will be obsolete. Young concert violinists today are not tagged as Erica Morini was some fifty years ago: “The finest woman violinist of her generation.” We no longer speak of a “great black singer” but simply an “American soprano.” I believe most musicians would welcome being recognized

solely on the merits of their playing. But as long as woman oboists were a great rarity, it is natural to wish to know something of their history. During the twentieth century things have changed greatly. Women are now playing principal oboe or English horn in major orchestras and finding it possible to also raise children. About fifty years after Odette Rey stopped playing, another father-daughter oboe story would have quite a different ending. Robert Zupnik, long-time oboist in the Cleveland Orchestra, taught his daughter Marilyn to play the oboe. A few years after she graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in 1972, Marilyn Zupnick was engaged as co-principal oboist of the Minnesota Orchestra. And there are others holding important positions. To name only a few: Elaine Douvas of the Metropolitan Opera, Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida in the Pittsburgh Symphony, Elizabeth Starr Masoudnia of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Kathryn Greenbank in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. I hope that if these wonderful oboists (who happen to be women!) sometimes think of the long path traveled, they will remember Odette Rey with her pluck and indomitable spirit.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Odette’s daughters, Denise Boucard and Jacqueline Roux, as well as her grandson François Jouffa for their generosity in sharing their memories of Odette Rey Roux. Mme Danièle Gyssels-

Odette Rey Roux in later life.


Rey, grandniece of Albert Rey, kindly arranged my first contact with the family. Each one of these family members contributed historic photographs for the article. I also wish to express my gratitude to Nancy Toff for directing me to the right sources for information on Odette’s association with the Paris Opéra. L.S.

FOOTNOTES

1. Laila Storch, “100 Years F. Lorée: 1881-1981,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 9 (June 1981): 37-40.

2. Laila Storch, “Georges Gillet—Master Teacher and Performer,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 5 (June 1977): 1-19.

3. Laila Storch, “A Visit with Myrtile Morel,” International Double Reed Society, To the World’s Oboists, Vol. IV, No. 3, (December 1976.)

4. Louis Bleuzet, oboist at the Paris Opéra; professor at the Conservatoire from 1920-1941.

5. Albert Debondue, born May 12, 1895, Pérenchies, Nord, France.

6. Dr. George A. Conrey, “The Paris Conservatory: Its Professors, Laureates 1795-1984,” Journal of the International Double Reed Society 14 (July 1986): 10.

7. Michel Nazzi, born January 14, 1896 in El Kseur, Algeria; died Guadalajara, Mexico 199?.

8. Fernand Gillet, born October 15, 1882, Paris; died Boston, March 8, 1980. Son of Georges Gillet’s brother Ernest, cellist and composer, 1856-1940.

9. Interview with the author, October 11, 1976.10. Born May 2, 1890.11. Interview with the author, October 12, 1976.12. Bruno Labate, solo oboe New York Philharmonic

Orchestra from early 1920s to mid-40s.13. Denise Boucard, (mother of François Jouffa,) for-

merly married to Yves Jouffa.14. Archives Nationales, Paris. Élizabeth Dunan,

Inventaire de la Série AJ37. Année scolaire-Tableau annuel des classes, première série, AJ37-138.

15. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians; Hillemacher.

16. It was the custom at the Conservatoire to always give a student’s age as of October 1 or January 1 at the time of any examination or Concours.

17. Archives Nationales, Paris. AJ37-355. Contrôle des élèves, discipline, présence, (plaintes contre les élèves.)

18. Archives Nationales, Paris. Théâtre National de l’Opéra, Inventaire AJ13 1010A, contracts.

19. Archives Nationales, Paris. AJ13 1338, Box 3. Appointements des Services de l’orchestre. Théâtre National de l’Opéra.

20. Bibliothèque de l’Opéra, Paris.21. St. Catherine of Alexandria, a virgin and martyr

who became the patron saint of young unmarried women. Her feast day is celebrated on November 25.

22. The Cleveland Orchestra Story, Donald Rosenberg, Gray & So., Cleveland, 2000, pp. 61-63, p.644.

LAILA STORCH, Professor Emeritus at the School of Music, University of Washington, Seattle has been a frequent contributor to the publications of the International Double Reed Society since 1974. Her 1977 article “Georges Gillet—Master Performer and Teacher” recently reappeared in La Lettre du Haut-boïste in a translation by André Lardrot.

A 1945 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with Marcel Tabuteau, she was solo oboist of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, played in the Casals Festivals in Prades, Perpignan and San Juan, and for twenty-six years was the oboist of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet.

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