Day 194: Conservatory style
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
194 — Conservatory style
12-February-1972
(Sonntag–Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Good day.
Morning—played Reicha trios with Horn class. I was
actually playing fairly well. Hopefully, it’ll keep
on getting better.
Afterwards, worked with El. Musik. The reason I’ve
been having all of this time is that no one else is
around working. I don’t like to be selfish, but it’s
great.
REFLECTIONS
Horn
and electronics. A typical
day today. More experiences in horn class and work in
electronic music. Boring reading, but most of life is
this type of routine and repetition.
A
traditional horn lesson—private. Although,
I have mentioned this before, it is an interesting
point to bring up again. In my undergraduate horn
lessons in the U.S., the lesson was private. You sat
down on a chair in a closed studio and had your
lesson with your professor. The instruction was very
good. You performed outside of lessons in school
ensembles (orchestra, band, chorus, chamber groups).
A
Viennese horn class—conservatory style.
The
Viennese horn “lesson” was more of a class. In
Vienna, you went to the horn studio, sat in a chair,
forming a line of students waiting to take their
lessons. You watched other students taking their
lessons. When it was your turn, you got up and had
your lesson, playing “standing up,” and having a line
of students watch you. The lesson was public. This
put a bit more pressure on you to perform well, and
did accomplish the purpose of always having you play
in front of people. In these classes, Prof. Gabler
would also arrange for chamber music and horn
ensembles to be performed. This conservatory style
approach also provided very good instruction.
John
- - - -
