 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2021-08-02 20:31
When I was in my early 20s, I was invited to teach at a summer school in Switzerland.
There were many eminent coaches involved. Sándor Végh ran a violin class, Julius Baker a flute class, Derek Wickens taught the oboe and Maurice André the trumpet.
The teacher who impressed me most was the viola teacher, Bruno Giuranna, with whom I had already played K498 and the Schumann Fairytales in London. Lucky me.
Although I was at the time principal clarinet of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, I was certainly much less well-known than all of these teachers. This meant that I had only around six mostly American students, whereas Bruno, for example, had 15 to 20. I couldn’t teach my students all day every day, so my procedure was to tell them to go to Bruno’s class with me and listen to what he had to say about the music, as well as about the viola.
One day we listened to a student play a viola study. At the end, Bruno waited for a moment and then said, “I will eat a cat.”
[long silence]
“…if…”
[another long silence]
“I will eat a cat, if…”
……
…and then,
“ I will eat a cat…if you tell me…you have practised that…LEGATO.”
We all waited. The student was a big, burly American who could have been a football player. (The viola looked small in his hands.)
He stared at Bruno.
“…YOU’RE…LUCKY!” he finally said.
It still reminds me to practise passagework LEGATO when I’m in trouble.
Tony
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Author: davyd
Date: 2021-08-02 21:34
I thought this would be a reference to Peter & the Wolf.
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Author: Chris Sereque
Date: 2021-08-04 01:05
Centuries ago, my first lesson with Robert Marcellus started with a Rose Study in (clarinet) G Major. You are not sustaining, was his first comment! Certainly one of the most important things when playing the clarinet is the legato quality..
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2021-08-04 20:12
I think Bruno was trying to get the student to dissociate the LH technical demands from the RH bowing and articulation demands. His LH wasn't clean, but he couldn't notice that.
We can do that too, regardless of what the end result requires. (We have to use both hands throughout of course.)
I suppose I was struck by the presentation technique, designed to fix the event in the memory of those listening, as well as the student himself.
Tony
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Author: kdk
Date: 2021-08-04 20:49
Tony Pay wrote:
> I suppose I was struck by the presentation technique, designed
> to fix the event in the memory of those listening, as well as
> the student himself.
He probably had used that routine before, and perhaps he saved it for really obvious cases of poor technical control. I can only wonder what he planned to do if the big, burly American had said (probably untruthfully) "Of course I did!"
:-)
Karl
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