Day 078: Three days, three world-class horn players
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 78
— Three days, three world-class horn players
19-October-1971
(Tues.)
TRANSCRIPT
As I write this, I realize that my days here are
awfully long—mainly because I’m tired. I wake up
around 6:30-7:00 and usually sleep around 11:00–11:30
[pm].
Another encouraging day. (1) My practicing went
so-so, a little better. (2) I talked with Prof.
Kaufmann about
electronic music study and he said I could
try it; but it would mean a lot of work—about 4
classes (some long) and aprox. 6 hrs. lab work. But,
I’m going to try it. I feel like this can be a great
opportunity and I’m all excited about it. Prof.
Kaufmann seems extremely nice. I’ll also take
solfeggio, piano, German, choir, and horn. I think
I’ll drop Musik Theorie.
To add some more good news. I heard the BBC orchestra
under Pierre Boulez and met the solo
hornist—the
Alan Civil.
They played
Mahler’s 9th (which was typical
Mahler—heavy, long, hard to listen to, but with a
beautiful, slow finale), which also had a hell of a
lot of horn parts. The horn section (and especially
Civil) were really good. The rest of the orchestra
was pretty good (Chicago–better.). I enjoyed it.
When we met Alan (notice the familiarity), it was
really good. He’s very friendly—I think all horn
player’s are. He asked us what were were doing, etc.
We had a small talk. I asked him if he knew Mr.
Hovey, and he did in fact. He said they had lunch
last month in London. I’ll have to write to him.
Then, I shook his hand and rubbed it over my
lips—magic.
I hope I’ll meet him again after one of the other
concerts.
REFLECTIONS
Practicing.
Hey, I’m
complaining less. I think that I may be improving. As
always, it takes time for change to take place and
working at it will generally lead to improvement.
Certainly, my playing will go up and down, probably
forever.
Electronic
music study. This is a
new development. I get in touch with Professor Dieter
Kaufmann. (I break my blog rule, and will use his
last name, since he is a practicing and well-known
Austrian composer of contemporary music.) We discuss
the possibility of my studying electronic music. I
have a strong interest in contemporary music and
would like to do it. This would be my first formal
study of musical composition (outside of that one
class).
I plan to change my school schedule and drop, dare I
say it, Music Theory.
Three
days—three world-class horn players.
Today, I
go to a concert of Mahler’s 9th Symphony [Symphony
No. 9]. It's legendary conductor
Pierre
Boulez and
the
BBC
orchestra, both
amazing. I absolutely love Mahler, so ignore my
comment on hard-to-listen-to—remember, I’m tired.
The incredible thing is that we meet
Alan
Civil (1929–1989),
the English principal horn player for the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, and the
BBC orchestra. He was a world-class French horn
player with recordings of the Mozart horn
concertos and other pieces. In the Royal
Philharmonic, he started as second horn to another
legendary horn player, Dennis Brain. I used to own
LPs (33s) of all of the major horn players during
my school days. They have since vanished. It's a
shame.
After shaking hands with Civil, I say in the journal
that I rub my hands over my lips to capture that
magic. [Looking back, I think this is my humor.
Looking to have some talent "rub off" on me—ha, ha. ]
He was friendly as were all the
other horn players.
[I think that my Academy school friends were the
leaders of the
"let’s-go-backstage-to-meet-the-artists" actions at
these concerts. I have never been able to do that in
the U.S., except at very small, local concerts. It’s
a shame, because if young students could meet their
heroes, like I did in Vienna, it would be a happy
thing.]
The remarkable thing—over
the last three consecutive
days, I
meet
three world-class French horn
players. Hermann
Baumann, Barry Tuckwell, and Alan Civil. That is
almost unreal. Only in Vienna,
the
city of music.
I’m in heaven.
2007—Walter
visits Vienna. In 2007,
my stepson Walter just returned from a trip to
Ukraine. He flew Austrian Airlines with a free
stopover in Vienna, until his connecting flight the
next day. Before he left on his trip, he said to me,
“I’m going to visit your apartment in Vienna, take a
picture, and you can post it as a 36-years-later
picture.” How nice. I told him, instead, to go to the
“center of Vienna” and just walk around, see the
Hofburg complex and that area.
Well, Walter got to Vienna late. By the time he took
the subway to “Mitte Vienna” it was already dark.
While he did get to see a church and walk around a
bit, he missed the Hofburg. I suspect that there
would have been a better subway stop for the Hofburg
complex. He stayed a couple of hours and caught the
last subway back to the hotel. Thanks, for trying
Walter. One day, I hope to take the entire family to
see Vienna other parts of Europe. It would be nice if
the dollar was stronger.
Marketing
to Vienna. I need to
find a way to market this blog to Vienna, so that I
can get some local answers and responses to my
comments on Vienna. A podcast may not be out of the
question either. We'll see what happens. Take care.
John
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