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The Nancy Jordan Fako book Philip Farkas & His Horn has quite a few little known facts and scenes from the career and training of the late Philip Farkas. In 1979 he was on a panel discussion at a brass event and there are a number of interesting stories and quotes from this session presented by Fako. In particular at one point Farkas is rather negative about descant horns, and it was a bias rooted in his training.
My teacher made me sign an oath in blood to play the F horn once a day, the idea being that if I remembered how the F horn sounded I wouldn’t drift too far away. He resented the Bb horn because you can’t remember how the F horn sounds from day to day. After a period of several years you’ll be quite away from the basic tone. The double horn came along and I thought that was a great improvement [over the single F horn]. Then people who had the double horn never left their thumb off. Then came the descant horn with the high F above the Bb….
I think in a way it is like a dope addiction. Somebody finds out that it is a little easier to play the Bb horn up high, then year by year starts using the Bb horn lower and lower. And when he finds that the high F horn helps accuracy he goes further and further, to the point that you see a lot of people playing Brahms symphonies on a descant horn. I think this is an abomination. I think Brahms would be the first to be angry about this if he could know.
Not a fan of the descant horn! The example he gives is a bit extreme, I have never ever heard of a player performing Brahms symphonies on descant horn, at least in the United States. It cannot be common. I also believe the “oath in blood” to use the F horn daily was only a figure of speech (!) but the whole discussion about tone and the F horn with his teacher must have really impressed Farkas as a young high school student. Farkas in the quote does not state which teacher to which he refers. He could be referring to Louis Dufrasne, who is the person most would think of as being his teacher; Farkas according to Fako considered Dufrasne the “biggest single influence in his life.” However his first horn teacher was actually Earl Stricker. Of him Fako notes
His extremely structured German approach … provided Phil with all the elements of correct playing. Stricker was born in 1902 in Okawville, Illinois, and came to Chicago in 1920 to study with Pellegrino Lecce, the principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also spent time studying with Max Pottag and Leopold de Maré. He had a reputation as a fine player, holding the position of first horn with the Little Symphony of Chicago, under the direction of conductor George Dasch. He was a good role model and inspiration for a young, ambitious player.
Back to the blood oath, originating with either Dufrasne or Stricker, reading this now as a horn teacher in the context of the horn in the United States today the standard tone is on a practical level actually that of the double horn, not the single F horn. I have posted before about the double horn being the home base instrument and would be inclined to stick with that in a modern context. But if you want to emphasize the F side of your double horn in your warm-up, which I think is part of what Farkas meant to communicate to his audience in 1979, please go ahead, it can be a tactic to improve accuracy at the least and you have the idea of working toward the ideal horn tone in place as well.
