There used to be a chap in the BBC’s brain trust, Professor Joad, who said, as an opening to every answer he gave, ‘It all depends what you mean by …’
When I was writing something a few years ago, a friend who was reading it through for me kept on saying, ‘What do you mean by good sound, good technique, good player? Do you mean he gives 10% of his income to the church and always pays his taxes on time?’ I was instantly shamefaced. He continued, ‘Why not fit the description to the task a little more precisely? Because good may be used for pleasant, worthy, ethical, reliable, humane or even ample. If you’re talking about horn playing skills, perhaps accomplished might fit the bill. Even that has to be qualified. In what aspect of their playing are they accomplished?’
So, I then set about to be a little more accurate in my descriptions. All the words he had come up with were based on feelings about people and things.
Thinking about all this recently, my mind strayed into the realms of wondering about exactly what we might truly mean when describing something or someone. To what extent is our own character defined by the initial impression we appear to give to someone else? As someone said, ‘We are only what people perceive us to be’. If this is true it must say as much about our perception of others, too. But do these passing thoughts actually matter in the grand scheme of things? Our quick reaction to a person’s ‘type’ or their worth might be formed, simply, on what they say that they do for a living, or what their particular calling is. Even if they are a serial killer or an archbishop. But it tells us very about them as sentient humans, and nothing about the brain tumour growing, unbeknownst, in the head of the killer that altered his or her character. Neither does it lay out the life experiences that led to the priest’s vocation.
It’s too easy to quickly to assess someone wrongly and I know that I have been guilty in this respect. Long before any semblance of learned wisdom started knock at my mental door, I was certainly tempted to judge others, especially those in authority. For instance, I didn’t like the Maths teacher trying to teach me the subject at school. This was partly because I was particularly bad at algebra, and partly because he beat us when we got a sum wrong. I assumed at the time that for these reasons he must have been both a bad teacher and a bad person. He may have been both, but not necessarily because of what I thought about him. He also may have been a very nice person outside the classroom and kind to animals. The problem in fact lay with me. Teachers like him, representatives of the school ‘ruling class’ were to be feared more or less automatically, and just as automatically disliked. When young I thought the same about policemen. But strangely, not about my music teachers.
Take another story (probably spurious) about Franklin Engelmann, who years ago presented Down Your Way on the radio. When he asked a toilet cleaner whether he liked his job, the man replied, ‘Well, it may be sxxx to you, but it’s bread and butter to me.’ It is doubtless true that one’s job, profession or calling, does not necessarily define the person. In the days when I spent as much time as I could fishing, some of the most seemingly wise people I encountered were those I met who worked in the open air, most specifically river keepers. They spend their lives looking after the environment in a thousand different ways, and had stories that kept me amused and interested for hours. They certainly helped me to see a bigger picture. I felt that in their case the nature—literally—of their jobs had indeed helped to create their character. A psychologist would doubtless say that because I already loved the countryside, their conversation doubly influenced me.
Regardless of commitments to family and friends, our existence as musicians is intimately concerned with our work. A solicitor (and I know some charming solicitors) or an office cleaner would think of a jobbing horn player’s life as rather a niche calling, regardless of the fact that we hold as heroes those who most people wouldn’t recognise. I have been looking at a little book called Who Did What When. I counted the number of entries—over 500—and was not at all surprised to see no mention of the Brain dynasty. Pepin the Short certainly featured, as did Ibn Saud, of course, but our little horn world was too little a pin-prick in the grand scheme of things to be deemed significant enough for inclusion.
Yet our seemingly narrow lives revolve round encounters with amazing people, whether in reality or by hearsay. I am proud to be the teacher of a distant descendant (by marriage) of Hans Richter. And you can’t get much posher than that. And why should we think of these musical legends as significant? Because they often seem, in a meaningful way, to have offered us occasional glimpses of a further truth about life.
Keats saw hints of a sort of truth among the figures depicted and in the shape of the urn itself in his Ode on a Grecian Urn. For him the poem is concerned with Art and Music, the nature of Life, and Death and Eternity. The human passions depicted on the urn, and all the paradoxical emotions revealed in the pictures painted thereon, inspired the poet to write:
‘When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
All these musings make me wonder what needs not to be thought about too deeply, and what in fact does really matter? I have just finished reading a wonderful book about John Donne. He was a poet who was struggling throughout his life to prove (in the sense of ‘test’) the perceived answers to the question of his existence on the earth. He has been described as someone who was ‘ecstatically divided’. Of course, he, like many, saw his mortal life as merely preparation for the next, the Super-Infinite. And in his 49 years he experienced more than most, being a lover, husband, father, poet, soldier, diplomat, and priest. But this was before Isaac Newton came onto the scientific scene and proved that many of what had been forever thought of as miracles, such as a rainbow, could be explained by calculation of light. Some of the magic began to be lost as the beginning of the Age of Reason was upon us. What had been conundrums (does anyone say ‘conundra’?) began to be somewhat less puzzling to educated people.
Where the Rainbow Ends was a 1911 fantasy play about two children and a lion cub riding a magic carpet in search of their parents, while being usefully aided by St George of England. It was all about the power of faith in miracles, and was enthusiastically received. The music was written by Roger Quilter and for me has—in one of the numbers called Rosamund—the unique quality of suggesting the possibility of an answer to a few of life’s mysteries. Maybe that is all life is, a series of questions. Most of which are never answered. Except perhaps for the ordinary ones like ‘What time is it?’ ‘Closing time, let’s go.’ When we’re young we ask, ‘Are we nearly there?’ and, ‘When can I do that?’ ‘When you’re old enough,’ comes the reply. Not particularly helpful and seemingly calculated to build up further the small pile of one’s youthful insecurities. When we are old enough, suffering under by now under a weight of uncertainties, does a parent haul us in and say that we’re now ready? Rarely. It’s suddenly our decision that we’re now ready. Autonomy is thrust upon us. Thus, our journey along both already travelled and less often travelled paths begins.
The problem, as I see it, is not that we don’t ask enough questions, because we do to an extent; but that we nearly always ask the wrong questions. Often, the questions we see aired on the television or hear on the radio are the same for years. One such programme is The Joy of Painting which I believe ran for 13 years all over the US. Undoubtedly the artist was a born teacher and his pictures are often masterful. The question the artist seems frequently to think we want to pose was, ‘How do I depict a pine tree on canvas, preferably with lots of snow on the ground?’ The venerable Bob Ross tells us the answer to that in an awful lot of the episodes. Each time I switch over for a few seconds there is a pine tree on his canvas. Sometimes there is a barn, it has to be admitted, and clouds.
Take The Archers Omnibus the long-running Radio 4 programme on Sunday at 10am. I think it took over, decades ago, from Mrs Dale’s Diary. The script seems to consist entirely of banal questions. These questions are nearly always answered by a further question, as they are in all ‘soaps’. The characters in the plot never get any further. How can they? They have to reappear next week and say something similar. They may be the everyday questions of these fictional folk, but they don’t get us very far in the real world.
So, in real life one comes to the conclusion that maybe one should pose thoughtful questions about the nature of our existence. We must have enough faith to be aware that those containing the germ of a potentially important truth, are out there. The art is to be sufficiently mindful to recognise them when they either creep into our heads, or suddenly leap out and bite us.
This philosophy doesn’t have to be too ‘heavy’. Certainly, we won’t achieve much without, sometimes, a healthy dollop of humour. Laughter is without doubt the best medicine. Doctors and therapists tell us this and therefore it must be true. I read that apparently a good laugh has a physically therapeutic effect on the body that lasts for up to 45 minutes. I saw a programme on the TV the other night about The Vicar of Dibley series. I laughed myself silly. The point about their scripts is that none of the humour and wit in the episodes was ever malicious or ‘pointed’ in any way. It was simply funny. The fact that the vicar could cause such ridiculous hilarity in her parish without in any way actually denigrating the work of the church which she is serving is the best thing about it. Laurel and Hardy had the same effect on me. Backstage in the Granada Theatre, Shrewsbury on April 21st 1952, I got their autographs. They smiled at me.
I feel I ought to explore my own thoughts as to whether any of the above creeps at all relevantly into our horn playing, so I need to return to the subject of questions and answers. We are trained to play music that in itself often contain questions. And we must train ourselves to recognise them within the notes. And play them for what they are. We might have to think for a second when we see a phrase that ends in the dominant, or that continues in a minor key and ends on something other than the tonic, the fifth or the third, i.e., in some sort of unresolved limbo. Or it may simply contain contrasting dynamics which are part of the feeling behind the notes.
My sort of music is not going to be others’ sort of music, as we are all made up differently, and our minds and bodies instigate our reactions. But we can all recognise elements of a mood in a piece of music. It will be written deliberately to ‘tell a story’ in a specific way, and we can usually agree on many of the elements that are intended to contribute, literally in a telling way, to that story. If we listen to a piece like Crisantemi by Puccini we hear at first a slowly rising sequence of five chromatic harmonies rising to an appoggiatura before it is resolved on a chord of C minor (preceded by a tantalising appoggiatura). It is a resolution that forms a deliberate statement, which then is reinforced throughout the piece in different keys. To me it is a very affecting sequence that consists in this case not of a question and answer, but of a statement, albeit tinged with great sadness. Or so it seems to me; as I say, we all react differently. And, strangely, C minor was a key also very personal to Mozart.
George Butterworth, composer of the song Is my Team Ploughing wrote the kind of music which for me is the most evocative of the county in which I was brought up. He was killed right at the end of the Great War. One wonders how many more questions he would have tried to find the answers to had he survived. This particular song, from A Shropshire Lad is included in the CD entitled If There Were Dreams to Sell, with the City of London Sinfonia and the wonderful baritone, Stephen Varcoe. Some of the English song settings on the disc were masterfully arranged for orchestra by the horn player Lance Baker, whom I heard paying beautifully in Der Rosenkavalier once, at ENO. The verses in this particular song contain a series of very personal questions from a soldier beyond the grave (one imagines a dream) to his friend who has been survived the war. All the seemingly straightforward questions are answered including the most uncomfortable one in the last verse. For me, however, the unutterably sad last few bars (played by the strings) end almost like a question mark hanging in the air, as if there is behind the whole poem another larger question about the natures of life and death themselves. The magic is in the poetry and further mystery has been shrouded onto it by the composer.
Peter Warlock does something very similar—almost mildly discordantly—in the last few bars, in his song Sleep. Listen to the version with tenor John Mark Ainsley and string quartet accompaniment. It is in the key of G minor, the key that, for Mozart, alongside C minor, was particularly poignant. Mozart chose G Minor for just 17 of his 600 works, and one feels that Warlock’s choice of key was deliberate. The subject of the character and mood of a particular key (naturally, this was before the introduction of the keyboard and with it Equal Temperament, and as some say, the beginning of the end of music as we know it—discuss) is one on which, amongst many others, I can become extremely boring.
Because of research into the nature of Qualia (a word introduced to me recently by my son), which might be defined as the subjective nature of our experiences and thought processes, we are beginning to untangle a few possible strands of the great, ‘Does bacon and eggs taste the same to me as it does to you?’ controversy. My father once posed this question to me many years ago. Nowadays it would probably be the great Roasted Peppers with a Harissa Glaze debate. Interesting questions, but ultimately perhaps not worth losing sleep over. It seems that, to an extent, the argument still appears largely unresolvable. In other words, although the experience of the taste may be describable, the actual taste itself cannot be. They may or may not be ‘the same’, but there is a commonality between them that allows two people to agree that they adore the former—or indeed the latter. It may be significant that when we are of the same mind when ‘liking’ something, we instinctively know that there is no point in our trying to describe how or define the feeling we obtain from it. And, of course, it does not matter if our experience is different. We might have the same warm feeling about something and can share it, but that actual experience is ours only and subjectively different to another’s. If we substitute the word ‘music’ for the words ‘the Bible’, we might very nearly quote the great Milton Jones, when he says, “You have to remember that the Bible is often a translation of someone trying to communicate the indescribable”.
Similarly, two listeners might describe the same emotion they have from hearing a phrase played beautifully on a horn. But the nature of that experience (emotion) is going to be unique to each. The appreciation, the excitement or the sadness will the same, but the actual essence of it will be ours only. The mind and the body are one, and entirely depend on each other.
Be that as it may, when playing alone or in a disciplined ensemble, it must be our common responsibility to interpret the mood of the music as it moves us, and to bring the feelings behind it to the listener in a coherent and responsible fashion. It is what good conductors—those non-violent ones who occasionally smile—exhort from their orchestras. We learn to portray the emotions of exhilaration, regret, jollity and sadness. And everything in between. And we cannot ignore the non-emotions of the accompanying ‘um-chugs’, and the almost percussive sounds we have sometimes to make. But these pose a further question, one which deserves a serious answer. Without the accuracy of these ‘not-what-I-went-to-college-for’ bits—and they may constitute the larger part of our work during the evening—the rest of the music cannot be appreciated in all its possible glory. Although we may not be showing our own feelings here, we try to play neatly, knowing that we are still usefully contributing to the bigger picture. And the best thing about these situations is that we can treat it as part of our very useful daily practice and play as well as we can.
Whether the music is good, bad or indifferent, our teachers can show us how to cope with all situations. By encouraging us to develop and use experiential techniques, we may nurture our own instincts and our intuition, although the two are not quite the same. The potential for doing so may or may not have been inherited genetically from our parents, as our intuitive powers are naturally generated in us through our life. Moreover, in order to pass skills-potential on, parents certainly need not be musicians themselves.
Apart from the reality of global warming, we live in a world made for so many unbearable by the actions of ruthless dictators, only motivated by greed, and fuelled by power and money. Instead of channelling their resources into poor countries that need them, in a pragmatic way, they apparently have no concern for the things which should preoccupy the whole world. Listening to the news, I was reminded that I once was privileged to give a horn class in the Odesa National Music Academy. Odesa is a lovely vibrant city, and its wide streets reminded me of Parisian boulevards, and it is astonishing what miraculous sounds can come out of a place that is being so tortured, and even its cathedral specifically targeted. It was intimidating to see the whole of the brass faculty sitting in the front row. My fee for the class was a shiny but fake passport giving me the false impression that I was now an honorary citizen of Odesa. In Britain, we have recently been treated to beautiful music written, and conducted and played by Ukrainians. Many of these musicians, like the famous players David and Igor Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter and Isaac Stern for instance, many of these probably studied in this very Academy.
Despite the ravages being committed in countries like these, part of our hope should be that we make life as bearable for others as we can, and we gain particular satisfaction from the part we play in making a satisfying musical experience for others, especially for the people who need answers in their lives. We know that those in care homes and hospitals get enormous pleasure when entertained with live music. And the music is certainly not just the tunes which they knew in ‘the good old days.’ These types of performances draw from them an emotional response to the music which says that there are a few questions which are actually now beginning to be resolved. You can see it on their faces.
In learning how to ask the right questions, we need to do it clearly, and it requires skill. First, in trying at least to suggest an answer to the preliminary question of where actually to start, we must learn to use and trust intuition, as I have said. This won’t provide us the answers, but maybe at least it will give us the belief that within the music there is a question that needed answering. Then we can begin to think about it.
We might take a leaf out of the extraordinary György Kurtág’s book. When, in 1956 in Paris, he was a struggling composer in his 30s; he became profoundly depressed about what was happening in his adopted country and at the time saw absolutely no absolute truths is his own life and his world. He was helped by a therapist who suggested that he should work from the simplest musical elements. He began to understand the full value of simple intervals and groups of notes and their potential for harmony. When he began to see and understand simple truths, he was transformed. He is now 97 and still working.
In an ideal world, and given infinite time, surely a ‘good’ teacher’s job is to say, something like: ‘Here is a horn’ (or substitute any instrument you like). ‘There is a mouthpiece in it and you blow through that end. You must put it on your lips like this. Now look out of the window—out there you see a beautiful tree with beautiful leaves fluttering in the wind. Don’t take the beauty of the tree for granted. Look at it as if for the first time (like the child’s vision in the first movement, ‘Rhapsody’ of Dies Natalis by Gerald Finzi, in the recording with the tenor, Wilfred Brown). Then say to yourself that you are going to make as beautiful a sound for the listener as that beautiful tree is for the viewer. You are now a horn player, not a gardener, so you are going to use the piece of brass tubing to create a beautiful effect. I am not yet going to tell you how to do it. I will soon be merely helping you to think of ways how to do it better. So, simply think about what I’ve said, take a gentle breath and make a beautiful sound.’
However fanciful we might consider this scene it might just work, if the child—or grown-up of any age—has in their mind a picture of the truth behind the idea of the beauty of what is going to be created. And if, moreover, they carry this concept through the whole time until the very moment the sound is produced.
When the first spluttering sound, or perhaps no sound at all, is emitted from the instrument, the teacher then will say, ‘You took a breath and you blew, well done, absolutely correct; now let’s do it again, but this time don’t move at all. You’re just going to aim all your energies into the horn, nowhere else. Just think of the sound you want.’
If they both go on in this way, the concept of the importance of sound will continue to grow and be reinforced. The student’s playing will naturally improve. But never will the teacher criticise a ‘mistake’ as a ‘bad thing’. When the student’s playing has improved mistakes will gradually disappear. It comes from asking questions of oneself and one’s teacher.
From the start, everything must still be based on the result fixed in our head. Not the result and the beautiful sound that we are trying to achieve, but the one we are going to get. It’s in our mind the whole time. Not achieving the result we want on occasion makes absolutely no difference to our constant mindset. ‘You are only as good as your last mistake’ is rubbish. The end product is the most important aspect of the player’s continual dream. Along the way, the teacher adds tips on how the lips might vibrate easier, how much pressure is suitable, how to use the tongue, how the muscles in the face might be stabilised and strengthened, and of course how the player can develop good breath management. Not to mention the carefully explained benefits of scales and long notes!
It soon becomes obvious that all the above details of the skills that we soon see the need for, and that we practise, are merely a means to an end. As long as the concept of beauty and truth are behind everything we do. Wise teachers show that they completely trust that the student will get the results in the end. However long it takes. No mention necessarily needs making of ABRSM or equivalent until the student is not only ready, but absolutely sure of the result.
The technical skills may be crucial to one’s success, and are vitally important. But they must be always seen to be entirely subservient to the sound—to the art itself. A concept of beauty leads to continual questions as to the nature of truth. Who knows? We might even get a few answers, as long as we know, along the way, how to laugh. Never at others, but always, when appropriate, at ourselves.
