Since 1980, the famed Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra has made several tours of North America. As a concert point of each tour the orchestra fortunately selected Canada's capital city, Ottawa, and I had the opportunity to meet the members of the orchestra's bassoon section after each of these first class concerts by one of Eastern Europe's oldest and most-respected symphonic organizations.
After one concert, I offered to take a VCR to the hotel room of Prof. Werner Seltmann, the orchestras solo bassoonist. With this machine I could play my reed-making video-tape made a few years ago for the Lubbock, Texas I.D.R.S. conference. Prof. Seltmann enjoyed the great differences between North American reed-making practices and the ones he teaches in Leipzig, and he asked me many questions about more detailed features of my reeds. I offered to visit his class in Leipzig soon after last summer's I.D.R.S. conference in Manchester. Prof. Seltmann mentioned my offer to the director of his school, and I soon received a formal and very kind invitation to present a three-day week-end master class.
The actual dates of the classes were September 1, 2 and 3. At the conclusion, I wished that I could have stayed for several more weeks (this would have taken me into the most exciting peaceful revolution of this autumn's amazing series of democratization s, a subject which was on the lips of each person I met in East Germany-yet my friends had no hint that this much freedom lay just a few days after my visit Amazing times!) Just thinking about our concentration on bassoon and reed matters, though, would have permitted us many more sessions than the three day-long ones we shared - with full maintenance of our enthusiasm and the freshness of each day's work.
In all we were 22 bassoonists. The East Germans included current students in the classes of both Prof. Seltmann and his friend and colleague Gunther Angerhofer, members of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and one or two bassoonists from Dresden.
I was not surprised by the enthusiasm and high level of playing skill shown by every player who attended the classes. The tradition of excellence in bassoon study carried down from Weissenborn and other master teachers is fully sustained in today's pupils and recent graduates of the Leipzig Hochschule.
The days were organized as follows:
First Day-testing all instruments and reeds for characteristics, musical possibilities and any mechanical problems. Although the selection of instruments included no Heckels, a few Adlers, Hullers, Moennigs, and one new Fox, all instruments were in quite good condition. I had brought a brand new Schreiber Prestige bassoon for the Leipzig players to try, and at their request, I also had brought my Buffet instrument, which was for many of these players their first sight of a French bassoon. In the morning session we tested all the equipment. And in the afternoon I demonstrated the Buffet by playing a Sonata of Boismortier with piano accompaniment and then having each of the over 20 players try playing the Buffet, using my reed supply. Quite a few bassoonists produced a very nice tone on the instrument right away, and every player was able to play the highest e" and f'' with no difficulty. Many smiles were seen as players sensed the ease at which high notes emit from a French bassoon, and how smooth the tone is throughout the full range of the instrument.
Our second day was almost entirely given over to reed-making. In the morning we watched the videotape of my reed-making procedure. I had new copies made of the original videotape, converted to the PAL format (which played with no problems on their European equipment). At the end of the sessions I left copies of this video and of a second (short) video which I made just before departing for Europe.
The subject of the second, 10-minute, video was a pictorial demonstration of my motorized equipment for shaping and for profiling cane. I gave permission to these players to make copies of my motorized tools if any machinist was willing to construct copies for them. After viewing the films, I answered several questions about my comments on the long reed-making video. In their first viewing they picked up most of the details of reed construction, but they had difficulty understanding some of the North American expressions (such as "crow," "blank," "turks-head ball" and the like) ... a quick translation of these concepts into the more descriptively perfect German language had every bassoonist much more "up" on our North American reed hand work. (I was asked to have my text translated into German for future students - whose knowledge of English might not be as extensive as that of the musicians working with me. I am having the translation done and will send it along to Leipzig soon.)
In the afternoon, our class moved to the large reed-making studio of Prof. Seltmann where we passed several hours (which seemed like minutes) .Sharing many details of European and North American bassoon reed-making lore at a large and comfortable table affording all participants a clear view of my work and the demonstrations which
Prof Seltmann gave me of his reed method. Naturally we discovered certain points of difference and many points of great similarity I would say that the Leipzig traditional method of preparing the tube for mandrel insertion is an older method (they have been cutting completely through the cane several times up to the first wire). With this method, many wonderful reeds have certainly resulted. When I showed my method which uses a scoring tool to cut six score lines at one stroke (Scott Vigder's development as described in an early issue of "To The World's Bassoonists"), then heated the cane for a few minutes in very hot water to soften it - followed by inserting three custom mandrels to form a smooth reed tube with a minimum of cracking or distortion of the cane bark surface, the Leipzig class was very positive in their reaction. I left each student with samples of my profiled cane and a few extra mandrels brought along for just that purpose.
Prof Seltmann and I each completed one goodplaying reed and then performed on each others' reed to compare sound and playing characteristics. Both reeds performed very well, and every bassoonist stated they would try out my method to see how if affects the performance of their reeds. One player demonstrated his method of hand profiling, using a plastic tube held to a strong light. His reed also was finished at the same time mine and Prof. Seltmann's played their first tones. And the reed constructed to this older (and more difficult) method also made a fine sound. One of the professional players showed me his small hand-held motorized grinding tool which he uses to help trim the tip area of his reeds. Thinking by bassoonists everywhere certainly covers the same ideas, no matter what the style of the resulting reed. Now that communication is opening up for everyone in the Eastern countries it should be much easier to share our thoughts and suggestions, to send cane and tools to assist our fellow artists in these countries and to improve our composite knowledge of the art of performing and reed making.
For the final day, we devoted our time to performance. Each bassoonist played a prepared solo with accompaniment, or a series of orchestral passages. It was a great pleasure for me to help several students interpret French concours pieces such as the Bozza "Fantaisie" and the Duttileux "Sarabande et Cortege" in a lighter, French style. And I was surprised that a fingering which I have taught for years with the name "old German high e" fingering" was not known by these players (* * * / * * *) C# + D. As most of their bassoons lack the high e'' key, this proved to be a very popular new fingering.
After all the players had performed and I had given them suggestions for musical and interpretive development, we decided to make an acoustical comparison of every bassoon being used. At the end of our deliberations, we discovered that the new Fox and the new Schreiber bassoons had the greatest resonance and very pleasing tone qualities, several of the other bassoons were also very excellent as to tone quality and projected-tone effectiveness.
It was marvelous to make strong new friendships with so many new players. And I am thinking that with the new travel freedom enjoyed by these musicians, we all should meet several of them at coming I.D.R.S. conferences, especially the one planned for West Germany in 1992.
To make my stay in Leipzig even more perfect, I had a few extra days to really get to know the city. I met a fine artisan woodwind repairer, Helmuth Hager, who fashioned a replacement key guard for my Buffet bassoon. Mr. Hager, who was trained in Markneukirchen, the home town of W. Hans Moennig, knew many details of Moennig's long career in Philadelphia and was very pleased that Hans had serviced my Heckel bassoons since 1954. 1 also got to visit the Schiller Hans where some of the great author's work was created, and to see the small (by today's standards) palatial house where the boy prodigy Wolfgang A. Mozart was received and performed when he made his first visit to Leipzig with his father, Leopold.
And for musical delights, I had the unmatched opportunity to hear an all-Bach Saturday concertchurch service at the Thomas Kirche, where J.S. Bach spent the final third of his career. These concerts are given every Saturday, are free to the public, and feature musicians of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the most professional soloists and choristers you can hear anywhere. Prof. Seltmann also procured tickets for me to the Leipzig Opernhaus, where I attended Verdi's "Nabucco" and Bizet's "Carmen" (both in German, and very excellently staged, directed and sung).
I look forward with great pleasure to my next visit to Leipzig, Dresden and other Eastern European cities, which are now so much more open to us. According to Prof. Seltmann's information, my invitation to give these master classes in Leipzig was the first occasion of a Western wind instrument teacher coming to Leipzig since the end of World War II. I hope this honor will be bestowed on many of my Western European and North American colleagues in the months and years to come. The art of music will surely benefit from our renewed communication and exchanges.
(For those I.D.R.S. members who have honed their
artistic skills on the Method fur Fagott of Julius
Weissenborn, you should know that during his career, Weissenborn
was the solo bassoonist of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
(its original concern hall, with famous acoustics, was
the pattern for the Boston Symphony's concert hall). And while
teaching bassoon at the Hochschule für Musik Felix
Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Weissenborn wrote his famed method,
the well-known Trios (for 3 fagotts) and his solo pieces
for younger players.)