Relationship with Jean-Pierre Rampal

Rampal's quote on Arimany

In addition to his career as a flautist, Jean-Pierre Rampal embarked on a paedagogical quest to recover and spread the flute repertoire, becoming the teacher of an entire generation. Arimany, who had studied with him, began to work with him in the late 1980s. The perfect understanding between them led Rampal to state: "He is the perfect continuation of the French school of flute and my style of play to such extent that even if I listen carefully to the record we created together I cannot tell whether it is he or I who is playing."^[1]

The last album they recorded together was dedicated to Mozart and Hoffmeister and released in 1999. Shortly before, Rampal had written his opinion on the art of his pupil and tour companion, which can be considered his artistic will.

Claudi Arimany is, in my opinion, one of the greatest flautists of his generation. He is one of those virtuosi who put technique, sonority and the colours of phrasing at the service of musicality and sensitivity, something not within the grasp of many.

— Jean-Pierre Rampal, 1998

As well as his artistic legacy, Arimany kept much of Rampal's music library^[14] and his flutes.^[15] The one with the greatest emotional value, which he uses in concerts, is the iconic WS Haynes gold flute.^[16]

He has been a member of the jury at the International JP Rampal Flute Competition, held in Paris.^[17]

Musical research

Beyond his extensive work as an interpreter, Arimany has devoted much of his activity to study, recover and spread the work of great forgotten composers. The popularity of the great masters often casts talented disciples and contemporary artists into obscurity. In the words of Arimany, "I am still very interested in the music of the great composers who worked 'around' those who are now better known".^[18]

When, in 1986, he submitted a project to edit Bach's pieces for flute to a German label, it was received without interest, since many recordings of this author existed already. Arimany's response to this rejection was to team up with soloists Alexander Schmoller (cello) and Michael Gruber (harpsichord) to review and select virtually unknown pieces practically by German disciples of the Thuringian master. The challenging recovery project culminated in the 1986 release of the album Virtuose Flötenmusik - Schüler der Bach by the German Motette record label (Wiesbaden).^[3]

Recording Pla concerts with the English Chamber Orchestra

His special interest in finding Catalan composers who had written for the flute led him to highlight the work of Joan Baptista Pla (Balaguer, 1720–1762), a contemporary of Mozart who travelled throughout Europe, few works of whom have survived. In early 1990, the musicologist Joseph Dolcet found original sheet music by Pla in Germany, which Arimany incorporated into his repertoire together with other material by Pla and his brother Manuel Pla. He later recorded two CDs, one with Jean-Pierre Rampal and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra with works by Joan Plan, and another with three concerts with the English Chamber Orchestra.^[18]

The trail of little-known authors took him to the work of François Devienne, a composer and performer who had been popular in his time, earning the moniker "the French Mozart", and had founded the Conservatoire de Paris. However, he had been forgotten until the late 1970s, when his works were reprised. In the mid-1990s, Arimany found the 18th-century edition of all Devienne's concerts. The continuous recovery of works by this author allowed for concerts to be performed in many venues, including the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, together with the Paris Orchestral Ensemble in November 1994. Arimany has recorded four CDs with the fourteen concertos for flute and orchestra by Devienne, a type of music which Arimany considers "natural, clear, elegant and melancholic, and requires great technical skill".^[13]

At the end of 2020 he published a compilation of all the work for flute by the brothers Albert Franz Doppler and Karl Doppler, the result of his research for conservatories and libraries in Europe started in 2007. The result is 12 CDs with 97 pieces, 64 of which are first recordings. Arimany had performed Doppler music at his concerts with Rampal in the 1990s,^[19] and once the research began he released two CDs with pieces for two flutes in 2010 and 2012.^[20]