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This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977.
He told me to pull out Till for our first excerpt. I played the usual first two calls and he stopped me. He said that both of the first two calls must be played in the haupt tempo with no big accelerando on the second call. All notes should be the same with none emphasized as most Americans do. Berger felt that it is only a “show-off” thing to play with the acceleration and when Solti asked him to do it, he refused!!! I guess you can do that if you are the first horn of one of the world’s great orchestras.
Opening Solo to Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel
As this is the shortest installment in the series it is a good one which to append this brief biography of Roland Berger, supplied by Nicholas Smith.
Roland Berger
A Brief Biography
Roland Berger was born June 16, 1937 and is the son of horn player Hans Berger. His family emigrated in 1943 from Berlin to the resort area of Portschach am Worthersee in the south of Austria and then to Vienna in 1946. He became a member of the famed Vienna Boys’ Choir and also received lessons on the piano. From 1951 (age 14) he studied with the then 1st horn of the Vienna Philharmonic, Gottfried von Freiberg. As early as 1953 (age 16) Berger joined the Vienna Volksoper as a substitute 3rd and 4th horn. In 1955, he got a position at the Vienna State Opera and in 1961 (age 24) was accepted as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. He was the solo hornist of that orchestra from 1961 until his switch to 3rd horn in 1984. He retired from the orchestra in 1993. From 1984 until 2005 Berger was Professor of Horn at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. His students include present members of the Philharmonic/State Opera orchestras Ronald Janezic, Thomas Jobstl, Sebastian Mayr, Josef Reif, Martin Brambock, Lars Michael Stransky, and Wolfgang Vlader. Berger has almost countless recordings to his name but he will probably be most remembered for his superbly powerful rendition of Siegfried’s “Long Call” from Wagner’s Opera Siegfried. In his later role as teacher/pedagogue, Professor Berger lent his support to the Vienna Horn Ensemble as a production manager for their first CD, Lebenszeichen (Alive and Well), which was released in 2012.
The series continues next with Brahms 2 in depth.
