There is one particular aspect of the French school which in my opinion makes it different from other styles of playing: it's the so-called relaxed embouchure.  The other, now almost abandoned, style of embouchure, is the "smiling" one, which was in use elsewhere in Europe before the globalization marked the end of most of the different characteristics of flute playing from country to country.

                           

                  

 

 

 

When young James Galway met Muriel Dawn, she taught him how to modify the position of his lips to avert him from the English “smiling”, tight embouchure style. Muriel Dawn who was also a singer, used to teach flute in Belfast following the French method of Geoffrey Gilbert, who in turn had learnt it from Moyse and Le Roy, a pupil of Hennebains and Philippe Gaubert.

 

 

Sir James Galway consistently emphasizes the qualities of this embouchure and demonstrates it during his master classes; after fifty years it has never failed him under any circumstances. However demanding a score, his embouchure is the basis of a reliable flexible tone in all the flute registers. 

 

Another important feature of the French school is the singing style, on which especially Marcel Moyse insisted so much.  He was deeply infuenced by listening to the great many opera singers while playing in the Orchestra of the Opera in Paris.   Though, to be honest, the first to speak about a style of playing inspired by singing was Theobald Böhm in his book The Flute and Flute-Playing (1871), a precedent Moyse failed to acknowledge.