Coche's Attack on Böhm
Böhm at once repudiated the charge. Notwithstanding this, Coche issued an Examen Critique de la flute ordinaire comparée à la flute de Böhm (originally written for the judges at the French Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Music Section, and dedicated to the members of the institution), in which he claimed the priority of invention for Gordon. In the following year Coche published his Méthode pour servir à l'enseignement de la Nouvelle Flute, inventée par Gordon, modifiée par Böhm et perfectionée par V. Coche et Buffet, jeune, dedicated to Cherubini, then Director of the Paris Conservatoire. We shall see in the next chapter what these "perfectings" of M. Coche were; meanwhile it will be noticed that he treats Böhm as a mere modifier of Gordon's inventions.
Coche's claim on behalf of Gordon was espoused in England in a pamphlet called The Flute Explained, by Ward (1844), who had made flutes for Gordon when in London, and also by Prowse, a London flute-maker, and the controversy was revived in The Musical World of 1843.[1]
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- ↑ That this was not quite appreciated by the non-flute-playing subscribers to that journal is clear from the following amusing letter to the Editor:—
THE BÖHM FLUTE.
"I pray you, sir, to put a mute
On all this noise 'bout Böhm's flute;
Your powers arouse
To muffle Prowse,
Nor let old Card
Contend with Ward,
But quash at once the dull dispute."
—Embouchure.
