Marcel Tabuteau First-Hand

MT era oboe

Submission Credits

Listed below are the names of those kind individuals who contributed new information to this website beginning July 2nd, 2017, followed by the submission date and what was submitted. All readers with new or corrected information are encouraged to email msmostovoy@comcast.net (see Submissions). Full credit will be given. Thank you!

Joan (Browne) Champie (March 2, 13 and 14, 2024) [a private student of Marcel Tabuteau in the early 1950s] for agreeing to a phone interview that will be posted on this website, and for submitting photographs of Tabuteau and the music stand she owns that was in his private studio on Ludlow Street. 

Philip Alexander (March 13, 2024) for submitting an autographed photo of Marcel Tabuteau inscribed to Vladimir Sokoloff that is in his possession.

Brent Hages (March 8, 2024) for obtaining information about possible other private students of Marcel Tabuteau.

Delmar Williams (March 2, 2024) for putting us in touch with Joan (Browne) Champie who was a private student of Marcel Tabuteau in the early 1950s.

Delmar Williams (February 28, 2024) for alerting us of the passing of Wilbur Isaac Hilles in August of 2023; Hilles studied with Marcel Tabuteau at the Curtis Institute during the 1951-52 school year.

Aloysia Friedmann (February 4, 2024) for submitting a letter (and the response) sent to the Curtis Institute by her grandmother, Juanita Storch (Laila Storch’s mother), in reaction to the news that Tabuteau would not be teaching Laila at Curtis for the 1942-43 school year; and to Barbara J. Benedett, Senior Archivist at the Curtis Institute of Music, for discovering these letters in the Curtis archives.   

Charles (Chick) Lehrer (October 15, 2023) for pointing out that the oboe previously pictured on our website’s masthead was a modern Lorée model (it has now been replaced with one Tabuteau would have used), and to board member John Symer for providing the present photograph.

Delmar Williams (October 4, 2023) for submitting information garnered from Ted Heger (now deceased) that Tabuteau gave free lessons to military personnel during the 2nd World War, and that Delmar’s teacher, David Serrins, took private lessons with Marcel Tabuteau (Serrins has now been added to the list of MT private students).

Slavko Popovic (September 4, 2023) for submitting a video of Laila Storch speaking at the 1996 IDRS conference in Tallahassee about Marcel Tabuteau’s career in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Brent Hages & Delmar Williams for their respective roles in the process.

Guy Baumier (August 18, 2023), the great grandnephew of Marcel Tabuteau, for submitting additional Tabuteau family information.

Guy Baumier (July 26, 2023), the great grandnephew of Marcel Tabuteau, for submitting a review of the 1951 performance of the Mozart oboe quartet at the Prades Festival with Marcel Tabuteau, Isaac Stern, Walter Primrose and Paul Tortelier.

Alan Griffiths (January 22, 2023) for submitting a 1985 BBC interview with pianist Jorge Bolet where he describes Marcel Tabuteau as “undoubtedly the greatest musician I have ever known.”

Dwight Manning (January 21, 2023) for submitting three photographs taken in 2008 of David Ledet, Laila Storch and himself examining the tools Ledet obtained from Louise Tabuteau following the death of Marcel Tabuteau in 1966.

Christopher Steward (November 14, 2022) for submitting new information about Tabuteau’s recording session with his Curtis wind ensemble for RCA in New York (1936), correcting information on certain Curtis broadcast recordings, and editing/remastering the Curtis recording of Hugues: Allegro scherzoso.

Aloysia Friedmann (February 5, 2022) for providing her mother’s (Laila Storch) Tabuteau lesson notebooks that span from January 1943 through August 1950, and for permitting their realization by Charles-David Lehrer.   

Slavko Popovic (August 20, 2021) for his ongoing submissions of Philadelphia Orchestra performances containing solo passages by Marcel Tabuteau from his collection.

Verne Hendrick (May 28, 2021) for submitting a new Tabuteau quote that has been added to this website.

John Symer (April 17, 2021) for submitting detailed information to the Editorial Board about Tabuteau’s practice of modifying his oboe bells.

Jacob Ludwig (April 11, 2021) for sending several photos of Tabuteau from various newspaper clippings that are new to this website.

Charles Lehrer (April 11, 2021) for locating multiple Tabuteau entries on Ancestry.com thus contributing important new information to the website.

Nancy Lehrer (April 4, 2021) for kindly photographing several Tabuteau reeds for this website, including the one contributed by Brent Hages (credited below).

Brent Hages (April 3, 2021) for submitting a Tabuteau reed with provenance (de Lancie—Capps—Finkelman), and allowing it to be measured, photographed, and shown on this website.

Slavko Popovic (March 11, 2021) for forwarding WAV files of Philadelphia Orchestra performances with solo passages featuring Marcel Tabuteau, thereby adding to our repertoire of orchestral excerpts.

Mark Seerup (November 10, 2020) for providing us with a program from the 1953 Casals Festival listing Marcel Tabuteau performing in Bach Cantata No. 189.

Toni Rapier (October 19, 2020) for submitting a note from Tabuteau to her husband Wayne, and for a Western Union telegram from Mme. Tabuteau sent the day after Tabuteau’s death; and Danna Sundet for alerting us of their existence.

Mark Seerup (October 3, 2020) for providing us with a program book autographed by Tabuteau from the 1951 Casals Festival listing performances of K. 370 and K. 452 of Mozart.

Lani Spahr (September 7, 2020) for sending us a WAV file of a mint recording of the Handel G Minor Oboe Concerto performed by Tabuteau and the Philadelphia Orchestra on their First Chair album, and Robert Grossman for connecting us with Mr. Spahr.

Dr. Charles Larsson (May 31, 2020) for allowing his four Tabuteau reeds to be photographed for this website, and Bennie Cottone, who alerted us to their existence.

Danna Sundet (May 21, 2020) for submitting an article on Tabuteau that appeared in Musical America, a photo showing an image of Tabuteau of hanging above young John Mack’s desk, and her ongoing submissions of Tabuteau-related materials from the John Mack Collection.

Marilyn Zupnik (December 31, 2019) for submitting information about her father, Robert Zupnik, who took lessons with Marcel Tabuteau in 1943; and for a 1954 Symphony Magazine article about Tabuteau’s retirement.

Bennie Cottone (December 12, 2019) for submitting additional information about Marcel Tabuteau’s reeds and photographing two that he owns.

Peter J. Jutras (December 4, 2019) for submitting photographs of Marcel Tabuteau’s reed/oboe tools given by Mme. Tabuteau to David Ledet following Tabuteau’s death–now housed in the Special Collections Library at the University of Georgia.

Danna Sundet (November 11, 2019) for submitting a letter from Louise Tabuteau to John Mack and his wife, Anne, in 1967, the year following Marcel Tabuteau’s death; and for multiple subsequent submissions from the John Mack Collection.

Guy Baumier (October 23, 2019), the great-grandnephew of Marcel Tabuteau, for submitting a series of souvenir photographs sent by Tabuteau to his niece, Thérèse Létoffé, in France during the years of 1915-16; and for his subsequent submissions of additional Tabuteau materials.

Douglas B. King (July 25, 2019) for submitting a Letter to the Editor about Marcel Tabuteau that he wrote to Gramophone magazine published in August of 2005.

Charles “Chip” Hamann (July 20, 2019) for submitting four photographs of a Tabuteau reed from 1965 that was gifted to him by Rowland Floyd.

Doug Ramsdell (June 28, 2019) for submitting a photograph (via the Facebook page of ‘OBOE – The Lasting Influence of Marcel Tabuteau’) of Tabuteau playing music by Virgil Thomson in a 1948 recording session for the film Louisiana Story.

Jacqueline Kovach (April 26, 2019) for submitting via Michael Finkelman a formal photo of Marcel Tabuteau that appeared in an advertisement for the Curtis Institute of Music in The Etude Music Magazine from 1936.

Lois Bliss Herbine (March 22, 2019) for submitting her article ‘William Kincaid and Marcel Tabuteau: A Legendary Collaboration’ that appeared in Flutist Quarterly (winter 2006).

Melissa Stevens (March 3, 2019) and the National Flute Association for giving permission to include on this website her interview of John Krell that appeared in The Flutist Quarterly in 2001.

Laurie Van Brunt (February 4, 2019) for her submission of eight audio interviews (plus transcriptions) of Tabuteau students she taped in the 1970s; and to her husband, Theodore Schoen and son, Daniel Schoen, for their technical assistance in preparing the tapes for this website.

Dr. Stephen Margolis (November 24, 2018) for bringing to our attention the Tabuteau material contained in the first edition of The Victor Book of the Symphony that can now be accessed on this website under ‘Books.’

Lola Soulier (October 21, 2018) for photographing and forwarding additional Casals Festival programs from the collection of Laila Storch and Martin Friedmann that included Marcel Tabuteau.

Beverly Gast (September 5, 2018) for submitting Tabuteau related material from the archives of her late sister, flutist Elaine Shaffer, for inclusion on this website.

Bernard Sassy (September 2, 2018) for submitting information about La Coustiero (Tabuteau’s summer home in the 1950s) that his father purchased from the Tabuteaus in 1959.

Lois Herbine (July 11, 2018) for submitting her article ‘The Phrasing Styles of Kincaid and Tabuteau’ that appeared in Flute Talk (November 2005) for inclusion on this website.

David McGill (May 15, 2018) for confirming that he conducted the 1993 video interview of Alfred Genovese and Harold Wright and giving his permission to post it; and to Arthur Grossman for informing us of the interviewer’s identity.

Barbara Stalzer Pineda (May 3rd, 2018) for making available to us Tabuteau’s correspondence to her father, Frank Stalzer; and to Fred Capps for ascertaining the existence of these letters.

Anthony Checchia (April 30, 2018) for submitting the video interview of Alfred Genovese and Harold Wright for this website, and Dr. Stephen Margolis for bringing the existence of the interview to our attention.

Russell Wilson (April 24, 2018) for locating a newsprint photo (of which we were unawares) showing Tabuteau with three of his orchestra colleagues; and Adrian Gnam for bringing this newsprint version to our attention for the website.

Jacqueline Kovach (April 9, 2018) for submitting a facsimile of Tabuteau’s letter to “Little Girl” that came from the estate of her late cousin, oboist Ezra Kotzin.

Robert Huffman (February 6, 2018) for submitting his video interview of John Minsker for posting on this website.

Joseph Robinson (December 21, 2017) for sharing a letter he wrote to his parents on March 30, 1963, describing his first encounter with Marcel Tabuteau in Nice; and for his subsequent submission of original Tabuteau correspondence.

Robert Huffman (December 5, 2017) for alerting us to his John Minsker article (with interesting Tabuteau material) that appeared in The Double Reed in 2008.

Douglas B. King (September 17, 2017) for his earlier suggestion to add the Satie and Eichheim excerpts to this website.

Adrian Gnam (September 1, 2017) for sharing photos of the oboe gouging machine, shaper, tube cane triangle cutter, and four oboe reeds given to him by Marcel Tabuteau.

Linda Wood (August 24, 2017) for providing two Tabuteau related articles by Dominique-René de Lerma in Woodwind World Magazine, and locating other articles for this website.

Mary Dawson (August 18, 2017) for providing the January 12, 1948, Philadelphia Orchestra Pension Foundation program featuring Marcel Tabuteau in the Qui Sedes Ad Dexteram Patris from Bach’s B Minor Mass.

Arthur Grossman (August 11, 2017) for sharing additional Tabuteau photographs, two new Tabuteau stories, and submitting three voice recordings of Tabuteau memories.

Pamela Ajango (July 29, 2017) for sharing her photographs of ‘le Tombeau de Tabuteau.’

Douglas B. King (July 22, 2017) for providing the press photo of Marcel de Verneuil, French Consul in Philadelphia, pinning the medal of the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur on Tabuteau.

Slavko Popovic (July 9, 2017) for providing the 1948 broadcast performance of the Sinfonia Concertante.

Douglas B. King (July 6, 2017) for pointing out that we needed to post the November 16, 1940, Curtis radio broadcast program with Tabuteau conducting.

Adrian Gnam (July 5, 2017) for contributing the following additional information: Tabuteau always played roulette at the casinos and he almost always lost. [Adrian was there!]

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What's New!

With the passing of Wilbur Isaac Hilles in August 2023 and now Martha Scherer-Alfee in February 2024, no oboe students of Marcel Tabuteau at the Curtis Institute are still living.

A letter sent to the Curtis Institute by Laila Storch’s mother about Tabuteau not teaching at Curtis–and the reply.

See the older model Lorée oboe now pictured on the website masthead.

An important video of Laila Storch speaking about Marcel Tabuteau at the 1996 IDRS conference.

New family information from Guy Baumier, Tabuteau’s grand nephew.