A Master Class with Philip Farkas

One of the guest artists at the 1989 Southwest Regional Horn Workshop was Philip Farkas. Among the materials I inherited from then ASU Professor of Horn Ralph Lockwood were five VHS tapes of sessions at that workshop, which I am now converting to DVD format so that they can be accessed easily by the current studio.

I am sure Professor Lockwood must have had permission to make the tapes but to answer one question first, no, I am not putting them up on YouTube or anything, they will remain items to be referenced by members of the current ASU horn studio which I believe was the sole intention originally granted by the artists.

But still I can tell you a few things about the sessions, and I will start with the one with Farkas. He starts out presenting on the topic of “The Three R’s of Horn Playing.” They were “right embouchure, right hand, and respiration.” A lot of the content mirrored that found in his books but I did find it interesting to note that he stated one secret to a better high range was more upper lip in your general placement. He said some of the best high horn players had quite high placements, toward 9/10 upper lip. In this part of the presentation there were also a few of his folksy stories that were new to me or I had forgotten. One in particular was he told that he was often asked which was more important, breath or embouchure? In answering he explained that is like asking a violinist which is more important, the right or the left hand? Both are important.

The second half of his session focused on excerpts. His explanation of the relationship of the words to the solo in the last movement of Brahms 1 was especially good. He went well beyond what he says in The Art of Musicianship but what he says there summarizes his central point. His point is to accent the D that is the second note of the solo.

When we learn that his horn call actually has words when used as a Swiss folk-song we find that the accent on the “D” is the only logical one. The words of these first two measures are “Hoch auf’m Berg” (High on the mountain). While it is perfectly easy and logical to put a good accent on the “auf” (“D”) it is almost impossible and certainly ridiculous to attempt to accent the “m” (“C”).

I am working through the tapes this week, be looking for more later in the week.