Gunther Passin
Pierre Pierlot, professor at the Paris Conservatoire and Lucien Debray, solo oboist of the Paris Opera were again professors of oboe at l'Academie Internationale d'Ete at Nice. A former student, Ron Greene, now of Los Angeles participated in the Pierlot classes and passed along some observations in a letter. "The classes are run very professionally. When you arrive at Nice it is necessary to audition for a level of class - elementary or master class. Ninety per-cent of the people come to attend the master classes, which are composed of off-season symphony players, college and very advanced high-school-aged oboists. Each player should be prepared with at least fifteen works, since Monsieur Pierlot doesn't like literature to be repeated too often. The students come to class with the works close to perfection - or should! - and have a lesson on stage with a pianist. The class runs very intensely for 3 to 5 hours a day for three weeks. All students are treated as professionals and the main purpose of the class is to prepare the participants for the international competitions and the final exams and entrance exams at the Paris Conservatoire. Pierlot prefers very difficult concertos and sonatas; this summer he concentrated on the required list for the 1976 Geneva International Competition. Works included concertos and sonatas of Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Vivaldi, Dittersdorf, Loeillet, Marcello, Telemann, Bach, Hindemith, Goossens, Ibert, Godard, Bozza, and a great deal of French contemporary music. Pierlot works mostly on interpretation and he demonstrates a lot and very well; he is a perfectionist and insists on absolute note accuracy. His tone is much darker than his recordings would suggest. I think he seems to be gravitating toward a more American sound. He never tells people to change their approach to tone, but rather works at bringing the best out of what they already have, although he might occasionally suggest a different reed scrape.
This year he accepted thirty students into the class. There weren't as many Americans as usual because the Academy cut down on advertisement. Students were from Juilliard, Eastman, the Manhattan School, Indiana, the San Francisco Conservatory, Paris Conservatory, Royal College of Music of London, and the Berlin Hochschule. As you can see, it was a real international group, with far more Europeans than Americans. In contrast, Jean Pierre Rampal's flute class had more Americans than any other national group.
The Academy is not the place to go to practice; it seems to me you should have the works well under way before you get there. The faculty are the only ones who perform in formal concerts and recitals. I was hoping Pierlot would say more about reeds or cane, but he seems to consider this confidential information. He is a very warm person and takes a great interest in each student. While he insists on accuracy he looks for musicianship too and seemed disappointed at the level of musicality in most of the students though some of them were fantastic technicians. He teaches tonguing at the center of the tip of the reed . . . and oh yes, in fast movements, insists on virtuoso tempos! I would be happy to give any further information to anyone interested in joining next summer's class." Mr. Greene's address: 8787 Shoreham Drive, No. 910 West Hollywood, California 90069.
Gunther Passin, the young German oboist, presented master classes at Eugene, Oregon from July 7 through July ] 8. Herr Passin was born in 1937 in Leipzig and studied with Helmut Winschermann in Detmold. He has occupied positions as solo oboist in orchestras in Torgau, Leipzig, and Dresden and with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin under Lorin Maazel. He has performed all over Europe, the near and far East, in the Soviet Union, and the USA. He has recorded for Electrola, EMI, Philips and Schwann, and his record "Virtuoso Oboe Concertos" won the Grand Prix des Discophiles in 1963.
Gwendolyn Carlton, who teaches and performs in the Peoria; Illinois area, participated in the classes and shares these thoughts: "Gunther Passin was in the USA to participate in the Summer Festival of Music at the request of the festival orchestra's conductor, Helmuth Rilling. At our first session, we had a group of six American oboists (five spoke little or no German) and one German with very little command of the English language. The first order of business was an intensive scale review. After listening to each of us attempt this, we were each asked to play something we had prepared. Herr Passin then assigned each of us either a Handel sonata or part of a Bach cantata for the next class. The remaining days followed this routine: 9:30 - 12:30 - half-hour private lessons for each of us; 12:30 - 1:30 - a master class in which we would play what we had prepared for that day; 1:30 - 3:00 - selected members of the master class would perform in the Bach cantata orchestra with Herr Passin coaching us on the proper interpretation of the parts; 3:00 each day a different Bach cantata was performed. Evenings for the master class were spent in the practice rooms remembering that "tomorrow it must be perfect." The course of study centered around the performance of baroque music, phrasing and ornamentation in the first week. The second week we were coached on literature of our own choice. We spent only one session on reed-making. Herr Passin uses machines - profilers, etc. He brought fifteen reeds with him for the two weeks and didn't seem to worry about them. His cane is gouged much thinner than ours and his scrape is of course much different. His sound is beautiful, dark and full through the whole range of the instrument, but I would not call it an oppressively heavy sound. Besides his solo performance of the Bach oboe d'amore concerto, he performed the Britten Metamorphoses and a Handel sonata in Portland. It was a busy and rewarding two weeks for everyone."