Editor's Note . . . Laila Storch is a regular contributor to these pages. She is professor of oboe at the University of Washington in Seattle and oboist of the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet.
"Quite simply he was the greatest in the world. No one ever played as he did - No one! Even his students didn't equal him, and you know who some of them were! They always called him 'le grand patron.' He was the greatest-- le bon Dieu du hautbois."
When I visited with Myrtile Morel in Paris shortly before his 87th birthday, such were the words in which he spoke of Georges Gillet, his teacher at the Paris Conservatory in the early part of this century.
Although confined to his apartment following a recent illness, Morel talked about music and oboe playing with all of the life and enthusiasm of a young man. In fact, rarely have I heard anyone speak with such exuberance of his love for his profession and for the oboe. In a small leather-covered notebook carefully treasured all these years, he showed me the record of his lessons with Gillet between 1905 and 1909.
"See it all there in his beautiful handwriting," he said. "For every lesson, three sets of scales with their relative harmonic minors, three sets of broken thirds and their minors the chromatic scale, etudes of Barret, Ferling or Luft, Sellner Duos."
Throughout the years, metronome markings of increasing rapidity were indicated for the scales and thirds, the etudes were to be played in transpositions, and some, such as No. 15 in Barret, in as many as eight different articulations. There were also various short exercises for problems such as the forked F. noted simply as, "Fourche at m.m. 138" and sung for me in rapid solfege by Morel as the following:
In the Spring, work was begun on the preparation of solos for the Concours.
Morel spoke readily about his vivid memories of Gillet, but it was more difficult to encourage him to tell me something of his own distinguished career. I was aware of the great respect with which he was regarded in France and I had been impressed by his playing on the basis of an old 10 - inch 78 R.P.M. record of a Bach Prelude and Fugue made by the "Trio D'Anches de Paris" and from hearing him once in person in the early 1950's in the Brahms Violin Concerto.
Myrtile-Gilbert-Gontran Morel was born in Abbeville, Somme, on June 26, 1889. When very young, he began to study the violin, and often in our conversations, he spoke of the importance this had in his later approach to the oboe, both from the standpoint of sonority and of hand position, emphasizing the necessity of curved fingers. At 14, he started the oboe, studying first with Louis Bas, another Gillet student, before being admitted to the Paris Conservatory. He remembered Louis Bas as having a tone "like the blue sky - like someone reciting lines at the Comedie Francaise."
In 1909 Morel received his Premier Prix, only to have his early career interrupted a few years later by World War I. All the oboists were in the war and he mentioned meeting Bleuzet at the front. Shortly afterward, there were auditions for the famous Garde Republicaine. Morel had not played for four years. He had no music, but decided to go and play from memory the last solo he had performed in England before the war, the "Fantaisie en la" by Colomer.
He said, "I played as if there were a piano accompaniment, taking care to breathe in all the right places musically."
He also had to pass a difficult sight-reading test, but this proved no problem for someone who had a Premier Prix in Solfege as well as oboe, and he was accepted unanimously.
Morel was oboe solo with the Garde Republicaine from 1919 to 1941 and oboe solo of the Concerts Colonne from 1929 to 1952. During these years he performed as soloist in all the capitol cities of Europe. At the same time, as a member of the "Trio d'Anches de Paris" with clarinetist Lefebvre and the bassoonist Fernand Oubradous, he was extremely active in the field of chamber music. He made many recordings, some with Poulenc for Pathe and for L'Oiseau Lyre, but unfortunately has not a single copy in his home.
While speaking of playing solos he mentioned the great importance of knowing where to breathe.
"One must not cut the phrase in two, nor go too far on, or breathe too soon. One must only breathe when that motive which precedes the breath has been well rounded off and finished. It is the same when we speak - at a certain point there is a comma, then again a semi-colon; there you must breathe. You start up again with another subject - stop - a big breath. You must be at your ease. If you don't know where to breathe, you can never play solo in public."
Obvious words of wisdom perhaps, but impressive to hear reiterated in a tone and measure of voice with the inflections and cadences so vitally illustrating his point.
Again, concerning preparing students for solos or examinations he said, "Eight or ten days before, be sure they can play the piece through three times in a row."
Morel is unhappy with the high pitch now prevailing in French orchestras. He feels that we are more "raisonable" in the United States in trying to keep to A440.
"When I began to play," he remembered, "we were at A438. The oboe is so beautiful when the tone is full - and then the violins that were so warm in the olden days. Now they sound sharp and sour - it's as if they had vinegar in them. Why? It's not a salad!"
We spoke of many other subjects related to the oboe. Of cane, gouging, reeds, instruments, even the importance of the angle at which the oboe should be held from the body while playing.
"30 degrees, maximum 40. Not as some play now, straight out. This is not the way to have a beautiful sound. The oboe is not a trumpet!"
He also reminisced about the days when before becoming a conductor, his brother Jean was known as one of the most brilliant tympani and percussion players ever heard in Paris. And always he returned to the question of scales, repeating, "Des gammes, des gammes, des gammes!"
On my second visit, I had a new oboe with me which Monsieur Morel wanted to try. "Monsieur Morel," he insisted. "I don't want anyone to call me maitre!" He asked his wife to bring his reed box and although he hadn't touched an instrument in over a year, after a few minutes of dampening the reed in his mouth, he was playing an A at the third octave. It was a fingering he remembered from Gillet, not the one on the chart.
"There are no secrets; everything is there in what Gillet told me. To play well you must love your metier. If you love your work, you will never be tired. You will never leave your orchestra rehearsal without making sure of every passage. The others go home - they're happy, but for you, it's not finished you'll stay until you have perfected the passage. Slowly at first, and then when you come back the next day, you will know it. If you leave before, then when you see that part again, you'll say, 'Oh! ca, mince alors!' La volonte, the will power - I simply had the will for that."
Perhaps there is a secret, and perhaps it can be found in the words of Myrtile Morel at 87, which reflect a life of devotion to the ideal of work well done.