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Ever wonder how the teacher of Farkas warmed up? Tonal Flexibility Studies for French Horn by William Mercier gives some clear insights.
Cleaning the office over break I came across this classic 1948 publication. First I was thinking to do just a brief article as it has such an interesting cover. A bit hard to read but a very striking cover!
On looking inside I was quickly reminded of the importance of this book from the dedication
TO
LOUIS DUFRASNE
Whose studies comprise a large part of this book
Louis Dufrasne (1878-1941) was the main teacher of Philip Farkas. In the Nancy Jordan Fako book Philip Farkas & His Horn, A Happy, Worthwhile Life we read that Farkas began his study with Dufrasne in 1930. She relates that
Dufrasne was born in Quievrain, Belgium, graduated with high honors from the Ghent Royal Conservatory of Music, and quickly became recognized as one of the finest players in Belgium. He played principal horn in the Brussels Opera and with an orchestra in Pau, France, and third horn in the Scottish Orchestra (Glasgow). After emigrating to the United States in 1907, he became first horn in the Pittsburgh Orchestra, followed some years later by the same position in the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Opera, where he spent most of his career. When Phil met him, he was principal horn in the Chicago Opera Company. He was also known as a fine teacher and Phil made the long trip every week from his south side home to the Dufrasne home in the north shore suburb of Evanston. Phil considered the tedious journey by public transportation well worth the effort because he credited Dufrasne’s guidance as the key ingredient responsible for his initial success and as the biggest single influence in his life.
While Mercier in his book, copyrighted in 1948, makes no claim that this routine is actually the routine used by Dufrasne, he does state that his “studies comprise a large part of this book” and as such they are an interesting document to be sure in American horn pedagogy.
After a brief Foreword Mercier presents brief sections on posture, breathing, and the embouchure, including a pair of anatomical diagrams of the muscles of the head and the admonition to “avoid excess mouthpiece pressure.”
Then we get to the music. It starts with a series of interval studies with no meter or bar lines. This example is of the second exercise. The instructions here I find very interesting, to “Keep the jaw loose” and “Enlarge the mouth cavity when descending.” Good advice. There are eleven total exercises written in this same manuscript hand spread over 22 pages, mostly in the form of interval studies on the F horn. Every exercise is slurred, this seems to be a key emphasis to the whole book.
It is a very workable routine but longish in terms of actual warm-up. But again the title is Tonal Flexibility Studies so it is more than a warm-up; it is a tool to learn flexibility and slurs. There are parallels to the Farkas routine but overall it is fairly different.
Interested to see a copy? The original publication is long out of print but Thomas Bacon in 2005 made available a new published version of this routine. I will have more about that soon in Part II.
