If you can't go to Europe during the year of Bach's 300th birthday, why not go to Oregon? A master class devoted to J. S. Bach's use of the oboe and oboe d'amore was presented by Ingo Goritzki in conjunction with the sixteenth annual Oregon Bach Festival in Eugene, Oregon from June 17-21, 1985. Professor Goritzki discussed, through participant demonstration, ideas of "Tongestaltung" (tone production, style, and development) specifically applied to Bach cantatas and passions. Personal examples of his beautiful, flowing sound and meticulous attention to detail helped one to discover a new freshness of ideas for musical interpretation. Each participant received individualized instruction in the application of these concepts.

Members of the master class were also able to observe rehearsals of the Bach Festival Orchestra from the orchestra floor itself. The orchestra was under the direction of noted German conductor and Bach authority Helmuth Rilling. Professor Rilling's lectures discussing Bach's use of voices and instruments during the pre-performance concerts of the St. Matthew Passion were especially interesting and informative.

Each evening there was an opportunity to attend a chamber music concert. Artists heard in performance that week included Paul Jordan and Hans Joachim Erhard (organ), Allan Vogel (oboe), Johannes Ritkowsky (horn), Michael Schneider (recorder), Rob Roy McGregor (trumpet), and The Musical Offering of Los Angeles.

Members of the class departed with new inspiration and felt that their week of "Back to Bach" had been extremely worthwhile. The following interview will serve to introduce American double reed enthusiasts to Ingo Goritzki - a noted European oboist, teacher, and recording artist.

Conversation with Ingo Goritzki, Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik und Theater, Hannover, West Germany

Kathleen Krause: Let's begin with you telling me about your background.

Ingo Goritzki: I was born in 1939 in Berlin. At the age of seven, I began my musical studies on the piano. Later I added studies on the flute. After completing examinations at A - level, I studied music in Freiburg. I studied flute with Gustav Schech and piano with E. Picht-Axenfeld. In 1960 1 continued my musical studies in Detmold and the oboe became my main instrument. My teacher was Helmut Winschermann.

K.K.: That's a rather late age to begin playing the oboe. What made you decide to change instruments?

I.G.: At the time I was in a difficult situation. My teacher was a famous flutist but he was not the best teacher for me. I was having difficulty with my embouchure. My lip structure is such that I was not able to achieve the sound that my teacher felt I should have. His philosophy was that in order to play the flute correctly you must have small lips. After one and one half years of working with him I stopped playing the flute. And so I had to decide whether to stop with music or to learn another instrument. Somebody suggested to me that I try the oboe. I liked the oboe and thought it was a nice instrument so I said, "OK".

K.K.: You didn't know what you were getting into!

I.G.: No. But for me it was very interesting. With the flute you are dependent on things which you can not change. But with the oboe, you have a reed which you can change to enable you to produce the type of tone or sound you want. If you make enough reeds, you will always be able to have the right sound for the type of music you are playing. I like being able to have in my hand the possibility to have the sound that I want.

Although my situation has turned out very well, I do not think that it is a good idea for a teacher to say that you have no possibility of playing because of your lips. Rather, I think a teacher should say, "It is difficult but you must search for a way. " If you always hear the negative, after a time you believe it and you don't play.

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K.K.: Something similar happened to me. For ten years I didn't play the oboe.

I.G. I understand. I couldn't play. And I had played Mozart concertos and Bach sonatas. Now I play pieces on the oboe that I used to play on the flute.

K.K.: Who was your first oboe teacher?

I.G.: I really only had one oboe teacher and that was Winschermann. I started with another oboist but that was only for two or three months. So in reality, I started with Winschermann.

K.K.: So, he had a beginner... an advanced beginner. What types of studies did he have you do?

I.G.: As a teacher, Winschermann was not particularly systematic. He preferred to stress the musical side of playing the oboe rather than oboe problems. He was very good at teaching about flexibility in tone and how to express musical feelings and nuances. This was the good side of his teaching. However, students of his have to find their own personal means of building technique. Do you understand the problem?

K.K.: Yes.

I.G.: This is where my teaching is different from his. My pupils have to do basic technical exercises.

K.K.: What exercises would your pupils have to do?

I.G.: The first thing they must be able to do is to hold the instrument in a natural way and to be able to use economic movements in fingering. If the hands are very good with the instrument, then we work with extended scales - two or more octave range. This, I'm sure, is not a very original idea.

K.K.: No.

I.G.: And they do arpeggios, chromatic scales, and scales in thirds, fourths, sixths, and so on. I use the second book of Salviani for exercises for the fingers. The exercises are not very difficult, but if you do them completely and exactly, they are demanding. After the pupils are through the scales they play etudes. They start with the Luft etudes followed by the Gillet famous etudes.

K.K.: I know those!

I.G.: After they have completed the Gillet, I feel they have quite enough technical study. I give the students more choice of the pieces they want to study. In musical literature you have a lot of musical problems, tone problems, and technical problems. One must not continue with the abstract.

K.K.: Which brings us to the idea of Tongestaltung. Would you briefly describe this concept?

I.G.: By Tongestaltung, I mean what we can do with the tone in regards to musical expression and interpretation. If you have a rigid tone, you have an interpretation without real feeling. You are not able to play with nuances, the little things that allow for expressiveness in music. I have been influenced greatly by string players. Two of my brothers are string players.

K.K.: Do you have a brother who is a cellist? I saw a listing of a recording by a cellist named Goritzki in a catalog.

I.G.: One brother is a cellist and the other is a violist in the Munich Philharmonic. When I was young, I was often with their teachers. And those experiences were very important to me. I work not only with problems and techniques of playing the oboe, but also I try to help people to learn to play musically. Tone development, breathing, vibrato, and style are all very integral parts of my teaching. Also, all of my students learn to circular breathe. It allows them more possibilities in musical phrasing.

K.K.: Changing the subject. You were awarded first prize for a competition in German academies in 1964.

I.G.: Yes.

K.K.: And then you went to Paris. Who did you study with in Paris?

I.G.: I studied with Pierre Pierlot for a year. But this study was not very intense. My year in Paris gave me the opportunity to see another country. I had studied in Detmold, a little town in Germany and so I did not have many opportunities to attend concerts. Here I had many opportunities to hear French oboists. In the beginning I was a little shocked by what I heard. I was exposed to new ideas of how the French play a line, the clearness of sound, and the careful use of the vibrato. And so I had many interesting things to see and to think about.

After leaving Paris, my first position as an oboist was principal oboist of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. This is a very international orchestra. Here you have musicians from all over. I played with an Italian clarinetist and a French bassoonist. I think after the year in Paris and three years in Switzerland, I found myself joining the German style I had learned with the ideas from other schools of thought. And I think that I am playing with a combination of influences.

I stayed three years in Basel and then seven years in Frankfurt. I played in the Radio Symphony Orchestra and besides playing there, I began to teach in Hannover.

K.K.: How far is Hannover from Frankfurt?

I.G.: Four hours by train. It was tiring and it became too much, too. So I looked for a change. After four or five years I was only teaching.

K.K.: When you give a master class, is it usually more general than the one we had here?

I.G.: Usually we cover more basics in a master class situation. The idea to do a Bach workshop was only in relation to the Oregon Bach Festival. We had a similar workshop here three years ago.

K.K.: How did you come to be associated with the Bach Festival?

I.G.: Well in Germany I worked with Helmuth Rilling and his Bach Collegium in Stuttgart. I was playing and teaching in the first Bach Academy in Stuttgart, and he suggested to Royce Saltzman that he call me. I first came to Oregon in 1981, then in '82, '83, and '85.

K.K.: I hope that you'll be here in '86.

I.G.: We'll see.

K. K.: What do you think it is that makes J. S. Bach's music so special that musicians would come from all over the world to participate in this festival?

I.G.: Bach's music is just so fantastic that everywhere people would come to enjoy. I greatly enjoy playing the music of Bach. What makes this Oregon Bach Festival so special is the opportunity to work with Helmuth Rilling. He makes Bach's works speak. You can rarely find the opportunity to perform the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion and the Mass in B-minor all in a short period of time. You heard the St. Matthew Passion yesterday evening. It was so fantastic! In Germany I don't have the opportunity to play these great works. We have a good ensemble in Hannover and this year we will be doing something with Rilling. But I don't play in other places in Germany. So each year I am interested in having the chance to play these beautiful, fantastic works. When they call me to come to Oregon, I come to Oregon.

K.K.: Last night I was totally overwhelmed, it was so beautiful.

I.G.: Playing Bach is very special for us oboists. A high point of our literature is the works of Bach. Works by Beethoven or Berlioz are interesting to play but you are always with the orchestra. With Bach, you are in the orchestra, but you are also a soloist within the orchestra. And this presents new challenges. You can find solutions to musical problems that will allow for unique interpretations. So it is very interesting to play Bach from all points of view.

K.K.: When you leave Oregon and go back to Germany, what will you be doing?

I.G.: For the most part I have to teach. But I will have another week with Helmuth Rilling. He is working with a youth choir and orchestra in Southern Germany. He will do the B-minor Mass with the young pupils and I'm helping to prepare the orchestra.

K.K.: So you'll be a conductor.

I.G.: Well. Sub-conductor. I'll work with the wind players. And after that, I have concerts with my chamber group the MERLINENSEMBLE. I'm giving a chamber music course in a small German town near Hamburg in September. In August I will be in Korea to play the entire chamber music of Isang Yun.

K.K.: I understand he wrote an oboe duet for you and someone.

I.G.: Yes. Burkhard Glaetzner. This is a very interesting piece. Isang Yuri writes well but his music is very difficult. He is very familiar with the musical effects that are possible on the oboe and uses these effects in an intelligent way. It is exciting music to play. His music has a very deep expression. There is a sonata for oboe, cello and harp; a trio for flute, oboe and violin; a quartet for flute, oboe, violin and cello; and a piece for oboe solo.

K.K.: I'm familiar with the solo work through the Holliger recording.

I.G.: I will be playing all these works in August in North Korea. Yun has recently founded a new music center and there will be a festival devoted to his works. In October I may do a workshop in Tokyo, Japan. I did a workshop there last year.

K.K.: I should write my Japanese friend and tell her about your workshop. She lives in Kyoto.

I.G.: Yes. But enrollment may be limited to that school. It's a private university. However, she could contact me.

K.K.: Tell me about your instruments.

I.G.: I play a Marigaux oboe and for contemporary music, I play a Rigoutat. My oboe d'amore is Loree and my English horn is also Loree.

K.K.: You would probably find my English horn interesting. I play a 1927 Loree.

I.G.: Loree? Is it boxwood? I have another English horn that is a very light instrument. I think it is earlier.

K.K.: No, it's grenadilla. My instrument is fairly heavy. But compared to some of the Lorees I've heard and played on, it has a bigger tone.

I.G.: A bigger tone? This old one I have from Loree has a little tone. It's a chamber music instrument. It was played during Furtwangler's time in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and I have it now. It's a very fine instrument. But I play that instrument only in chamber music.

The new instruments from Loree are better. The intonation is good, they have a beautiful sound and they are easy to play. You can play them like the oboe. You don't have to make much of a change in embouchure. You can put the oboe down and pick up the oboe d'amore.

K.K.: How would you compare the Marigaux oboe with the Loree oboe?

I.G.: I don't know. Perhaps the Loree is better suited for the American reeds. I don't particularly care for it. I have pupils who play Loree. It is very good for studying but when the student gets to a certain point when I want to suggest another sound, the student changes instruments. And that instrument is the Marigaux oboe. I have found the lower tones of the Loree to be a little flat, sounding strange, not round and full. This has been my experience.

K.K.: And of course, I must ask you about your reed.

I.G.: I use a 46 mm tube and the overall length is 70 mm. The scrape is a tapered U starting approximately 10- 11 mm back from the tip. It is considered a long scrape by German standards. I used to make all my reeds by hand until I got, as you call it, my "magic reed machine." It enables me to know if a reed has possibilities after two minutes instead of after twenty minutes by hand. If a reed has very good possibilities, I can make it in the morning and play on it a little. By the afternoon the reed will have changed and I make my adjustments, and so I can play on it in the evening. The machine has been a great time saver. It allows me some time to relax and enjoy a good German beer. Of course though, I must make my oboe d'amore and English horn reeds by hand and all my finishing must be done by hand.

K.K.: Who makes this machine?

I.G.: A man by the name of Kunibert Michel. He has been making machines for twenty years and lives only a ten-minute drive from my house.

K.K.: One final question. What differences do you see between the playing of American and German oboists?

I.G.: This is difficult for me to answer because I know the playing of German oboists so much better. I heard a recording by Ray Still and was impressed. I have not heard other famous American oboists. I judged a competition in Munich where there were about fifteen oboists. Here, I felt the American sound could generally be more flexible. But I really don't have enough experience listening to American oboists to be able to say more.

K.K.: Let me thank you for your time and for the opportunity I had to study with you last week. I hope that other American oboists will also have an opportunity for a truly enriching educational experience such as we had here at the Oregon Bach Festival.

About the writer...

Kathleen Krause is a teacher of the visually handicapped in the Tucson public schools. As an avid double reed enthusiast, she is principal oboist in the Civic Orchestra of Tucson.

DISCOGRAPHY

Albinoni: Concerto for Two Oboes in F, Op. 9/3; in C, Op. 7/2 (Monteverdi Academy) Claves D-601.

Bach: Sonata in G minor for Oboe and Harpsichord BWV 1030; Sonata in G minor for Oboe and Harpsichord BWV 1020; (Dahler) Sonata in G minor BWV 10 13 for Oboe Solo Claves D-908

Bach: Concerto for Oboe and Violin S. 1060; Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo S. 1064 (German Bach Soloists) Arabesque 8075 (See also MHS 4506 for S. 1064)

Bach: Concerto in A Major for Oboe d'amore and Strings BWV 1055 (Philh. de Camera) Dabringhaus u. Grimm Mdg G 1185

Handel: Six Sonatas Eterna

Herzogenberg: Trio in D Major, Op. 61; Reinecke: Trio in A minor, Op. 188 (Tuckwell, Requejo) Claves D-803

Mozart: Concerto in C Major K. 314; Haydn: Concerto in C Major (Southwest German Chamber Orchestra) Claves D-606

Mozart: Quintet in D minor K. 406; Quartet in F Major K. 370; Adagio 580a (Berner String Quartet) Claves D-8406

Schumann: Three Romances (Requejo) Claves D-8201

Vivaldi: Sonata in C minor, R. 53; Sonata Op. 13/6 Il Pastor Fido (Dahler w/ M. Sax, bassoon) Claves D-901

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