It always makes my heart glad when I hear a great musician say, "I always remember what my first teacher said...", and makes me want to continue teaching. I guess it is not ALL in vain........
According to Philip Farkas (Principle French horn of the Chicago Symphony for many years) teaching is the only real legacy you leave. He is on a recording where he is talking to one of his students saying, "I used to wonder. What am I leaving to posterity? All this hard work and all this energy that I'm putting into it and all my hopes and desires. What do I leave? Well, I thought maybe these great concerts. I found out later - no it's not. The audience forgets a concert in two or three weeks time and you'll forget it in six months. And so I thought, well maybe it's recordings. When I used to work with the Boston Symphony and Koussevitzky, Koussevitzky would come out as we started recording and say 'remember, we're not playing - we're not making recordings, we are making historical documents.' And very impressive and I thought, well this is what I'm leaving to posterity - these marvelous records. And you know where those records are now? They're in the Bargain Barn down at the bottom of a pile of records that are fifty cents apiece. They're obsolete. They were made on 78 revolution recordings and now then came long play records then came stereo then came quadraphonic then digital so these are all obsolete. So I wondered to myself, what AM I leaving to this world. The records are gone - or most of them. And then suddenly I remembered, wait a minute, you're not only a horn player you're a teacher. And then I remembered. This is what I'm leaving. My teaching. This is my life. My teacher had ideas that he got from his teacher. Passed them on to me. I pass them on to my students. You're a perfect example of it and you now have students of your own. And in two years those students will have students. And I feel I'm the link in the chain that brings down from antiquity perhaps - on the horn certainly - to the future the ability to play this instrument with my ideas from my teacher passed on to you. You not only use them but elaborate on them and improve on them. And so I can truly say that I think if posterity will remember me, if at all, as a teacher rather than a performer. And so I think that to me the teaching profession is probably one of the great professions of all time. And so, people who are in teaching, I think, should be very proud of their calling and enjoy it as I have." Of course, this was before the internet and TH-cam and server farms that have pretty good memories. But I wouldn't count on anything in those worlds lasting for centuries.
I have listened to one of his performances of this and he DOES play with the orchestra instead of on top of it. That's also the way Dennis Brain played it. Some players try to dominate the orchestra and I don't think that works as well.
It always makes my heart glad when I hear a great musician say, "I always remember what my first teacher said...", and makes me want to continue teaching. I guess it is not ALL in vain........
According to Philip Farkas (Principle French horn of the Chicago Symphony for many years) teaching is the only real legacy you leave. He is on a recording where he is talking to one of his students saying, "I used to wonder. What am I leaving to posterity? All this hard work and all this energy that I'm putting into it and all my hopes and desires. What do I leave? Well, I thought maybe these great concerts. I found out later - no it's not. The audience forgets a concert in two or three weeks time and you'll forget it in six months. And so I thought, well maybe it's recordings. When I used to work with the Boston Symphony and Koussevitzky, Koussevitzky would come out as we started recording and say 'remember, we're not playing - we're not making recordings, we are making historical documents.' And very impressive and I thought, well this is what I'm leaving to posterity - these marvelous records. And you know where those records are now? They're in the Bargain Barn down at the bottom of a pile of records that are fifty cents apiece. They're obsolete. They were made on 78 revolution recordings and now then came long play records then came stereo then came quadraphonic then digital so these are all obsolete. So I wondered to myself, what AM I leaving to this world. The records are gone - or most of them. And then suddenly I remembered, wait a minute, you're not only a horn player you're a teacher. And then I remembered. This is what I'm leaving. My teaching. This is my life. My teacher had ideas that he got from his teacher. Passed them on to me. I pass them on to my students. You're a perfect example of it and you now have students of your own. And in two years those students will have students. And I feel I'm the link in the chain that brings down from antiquity perhaps - on the horn certainly - to the future the ability to play this instrument with my ideas from my teacher passed on to you. You not only use them but elaborate on them and improve on them. And so I can truly say that I think if posterity will remember me, if at all, as a teacher rather than a performer. And so I think that to me the teaching profession is probably one of the great professions of all time. And so, people who are in teaching, I think, should be very proud of their calling and enjoy it as I have." Of course, this was before the internet and TH-cam and server farms that have pretty good memories. But I wouldn't count on anything in those worlds lasting for centuries.
I have listened to one of his performances of this and he DOES play with the orchestra instead of on top of it. That's also the way Dennis Brain played it. Some players try to dominate the orchestra and I don't think that works as well.