message: 1 date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:03:27 -0500 from: phir...@nypl.org subject: [Hornlist] RIP: Arthur Goldstein
There must be legions of his students on this list; he taught a large chunk of the sizeable pool of young players on Long Island for several decades. I hope to hear more about him from those others out there. Peter Hirsch _____________________________________________________ Peter, I studied with Arthur at Hofstra University from 1979 through 1981. Despite the fact that I had already been studying for seven years, had made All County (Principal Horn in the Band), All State and All Eastern, and had received a full music scholarship at Hofstra U, Arthur didn't like what he saw day one, especially in regards to my [extremely] puckered embouchere. So he started me from scratch on his "First Book of Exercises for French Horn", where the chapters consisted of very basic patterns of long tones, scales, arpeggios, and interval training, all designed to be tongued or slurred in all the different keys at increasing degrees of intensity as you progressed through the book. Despite the fact that he knew I had all that Kopprasch, Kling, Gallay, excerpts, transposition, Mozart/Beethoven/Gliere Strauss Concerti, etc., in my background, my first months were all about performing these very basic exercises and long tones with a small portable mirror that was placed on my music stand on a daily basis in order to observe my facial muscle shortcomings. I eventually went though [broke] several of these mirrors (I still dread the 42 years bad luck), and after several months Mr. Goldstein basically had enough and said words to the effect of "no professional horn player plays with such a ridiculous embouchere". That did the trick, and I immediately moved on to a more Farkas like setup. Once we got past that he still kept me focussed on extremely basic stuff, so that it took me the remaining two years we had together to get through his First Book of Exercises, although I had progressed to his Second Book of Etudes and got to do the Charier Larghetto for my recital piece in the second year. Mr. Goldstein also stressed musicianship and professional deportment in our time together. Along with his omnipresent cigars, tweed sports coat and the stock he clearly put into his own professional mannerisms and diction I got the impression that he might have been through some form of "finishing school" and had elocution lessons at some point in his life. I remember one time when he described his ongoing daily routine over the past forty years of 1) rising early to get in about an hour or warm up time, and 2) going out to do his rounds and teach his lessons before 3) getting an afternoon nap (1 hour?) and, 4) leaving plenty of buffer time on his commute to the theater (he was playing Evita at that time) so that he was 5) alway in his chair and ready to work well before the scheduled time (I think he said that he was slightly late only 3x in his entire career). You're right about the fact that there were legions of students, or people that has influenced, some of whom have gone on to do important work. I just read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, where (after going on to some extent about Julie Landsman and Abbie Conant), Gladwell name checks Sylvia Alimena of the National Symphony in D.C. I remember that the last thing Sylvia told me up in Boston, circa 1980, was to "tell Mr. Goldstein I said hello and tell him that I hope to be able to play as well as he does when I get to be his age". More recently, I performed in a Mahler 2 with the South Shore Symphony in Rockville Centre, Long Island, and it seemed that all eleven horns were lining up to pay tribute as they took turns visiting Arthur in the audience (his wife Jean played harp with the orchestra). The funny thing is that it seems to me that his students don't necessarily sound like each other, but I've also heard it said that you could always tell if a person had studied with Arthur by listening to them play. Go figure. In closing, if I have confirmed your impression that Arthur was an "old school" type of individual who consistently stressed musicianship and professional deportment along with the basics of horn playing and was not above raising his voice when he had to in order to make a point of some importance regarding the above, then I have done my job within this little essay. Put another way, I suppose every time I show up for rehearsal ahead of time with a pencil, interpret a dynamic marking as a tonal color (as opposed to some form of measurable decibel level), focus on what the rest of the ensemble is doing, and behave in a way that expresses to the audience that we are performing as a musical unit with no misplaced egos, I have to credit Arthur Goldstein. BTW, it seems that all that Cor Publishing stuff (First Book of Exercise, First Book of Etudes) is with Alan Wiltshire now. Does anyone else use these books with their students? (I know I do). Best regards, Louis Denaro ____________________________________________________________ Save on a Fashion Design Education. Click Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/PnY6rc2z6jhFUTczsh850fLcmYafYLVZezMaPJzgC6mpGwUC8VDik/ _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
