Klarinet Archive - Posting 000764.txt from 1998/08

From: avrahm galper <agalper@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] OUR VISUAL ARTS CONDUCTOR
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 10:08:33 -0400

OUR VISUAL ARTS CONDUCTOR

Seiji Ozawa, the Toronto Symphony conductor for some years, studied at
the TOHO school of Music in Tokyo.You were taught there that you should
talk little but conduct more. In other words if the conductor has to
resort to many words, he's not such a good conductor.

I have mentioned in the past that whenever there was an encore to play,
the choreography of the piece was a joy to see. Even if you were deaf,
you could hear "visually".

There was one instance that for a few weeks he would say "shout".
To me it meant, "play louder, play it out".

However, once he said "shout" in a very soft passage.
I turned to Nick Kilburn, our principal bassoonist, and asked "what does
he mean here by saying shout?"
Nick answered: "What he is saying is SHORT!"

Now you see why the Toho school of music relies more on body language.

There was another concert we did, the ballet music from Prokofieff's
Romeo and Juliet.
There is a minuet, a quiet part that starts with flutes followed by the
clarinets ending with a trill.

Here Ozawa became graphic. When the trill came, he stuck out his tongue
and wiggled it from side to side in a very rapid tempo
We, the clarinets, couldn't refrain from laughing.
Eventually we had to ask our personnel manager to ask Seiji not to stick
his tongue out.

Maybe Ozawa should have said something instead!

--
Avrahm Galper
THE UPBEAT BAERMANN MELODIC SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
http://www.sneezy.org/avrahm_galper/index.html

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