Day 306: National Hungarian Symphony
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
306 — National Hungarian Symphony
03-Jun-1972
(Samstag–Sat.)
TRANSCRIPT
Morning. In horn lesson. Not so bad.
Took a rest and talked with James G. (hornist) for a
while. Good kid. Good player.
Afternoon. About four hours of organizational
splicing work.
Heard the Hungarian National Symphony. Excellent
orchestra. Brahms 1st, Bartok, and Kodály. The horns
played with vibrato and the “soft school” soft
attacks. The loud passages were loud and without any
brass, or perhaps just a touch. For Brahms it was
beautiful. The tone was so creamy. It’s quite a nice
change to hear not-always-loud brass from the horns.
REFLECTIONS
Hungarian
Symphony. After a
day of normal horn and electronic work, I see the
Hungarian National Symphony at night and loved the
orchestra. I note that the style of horn playing is
quite different from both the Viennese style and
western style of performance. First, there is vibrato
which most of us do not employ. Vibrato is fine on
solo passages, though I don’t use it. Second, they
don’t play with quite as much brass in the sound. For
tonight, it’s a nice contrast. Though, I do love the
sound of a full horn section playing full-out
brass—think Hollywood movie soundtrack.
John
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