Tambourin for flute and piano

François-Joseph Gossec (1734–1829) was a French composer, a pivotal figure in French music, serving as a bridge between the Ancien Régime and the French Revolution.
Born in Vergnies, a small village in the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), in a family of farmers, he was exposed to music through his duties as a choirboy at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Antwerp.
At the age of 17, he moved to Paris with a letter of recommendation to Jean-Philippe Rameau. Rameau helped him secure a position as a violinist and later conductor in the private orchestra of the wealthy patron Le Riche de La Pouplinière. Under the guidance of Johann Stamitz, who visited Paris in the 1750s, Gossec was exposed to the Mannheim School of orchestral playing, which led him to compose the first symphonies ever published in France in 1754. Following the fall of the monarchy, Gossec became the musical voice of the First French Republic. He composed massive outdoor hymns and festivals for the state, utilizing large wind bands to reach the "citizen masses".
He was one of the founders and first inspectors of the Paris Conservatoire (1795), ensuring that his rigorous Classical standards would be passed on to future generations of French musicians.
While he is now most famous for the "Tambourin," his output was vast, including over 50 symphonies, numerous operas, and the influential Grande Messe des Morts (1760), which pre-dated and likely influenced the Requiems of Mozart and Berlioz.