36 Years Ago

36 Years Ago, Vienna 1971—A Student Journal

Day 306: National Hungarian Symphony

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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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