interview with
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interview with
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I am a Hungarian flutist, I basically only play Baroque instruments, mainly late Baroque German repertoire, but also French and Italian music. As a listener, however, I prefer post-Baroque music like Brahms', Beethoven's and Mozart's chamber music. My three-year-old son is now constantly listening to Scrabin's Preludes on CD and Bach's organ works. I live in Budapest. The current tasks of the Quantz Project are my main occupation: practice, recordings, editing, rehearsing, organization. I have recorded only about 30 of the approximately 200 sonatas so far, there will be a lot more work to do, as a big CD label took over the project,. I will post the details of this CD project soon. At the moment, I only have private students, in-person classes with Hungarian and foreign students, and a lot of online teaching. My concerts are mainly abroad, mostly as a soloist or chamber musician. I play the baroque flute, but I also deal with many other things, and when I ever stop playing the flute, I will finally have time to other creative things. When I have to define myself as what I am, I often don't even think of the term 'flutist'.
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The first thing you do when you pick up your traverso to start the practice day, and why?
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I play some notes with frullato (flutter-tonguing). This will help me regain the conditions necessary to play the flute, which I have lost since the day before. It is important to note that this only makes sense if someone forms the 'R' vowel made from front-palate with tongue tip, such as the Italians or us Hungarians too. Flutter-tonguing only works if the support and the amount/speed of the air are optimal for the 'normal' sounding of the given sound. Therefore, it is also a very good testing method.
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Any recurring piece to play every day, and why?
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No, there isn't one. But see about this question later, in the 'final comments' section.
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Do you have a daily routine?
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Only when I'm not preparing for an approaching concert performance or recording. So, if the goal is only to maintain fitness, then I usually play through a series of warm-up exercises lasting approximately 2 x 40 minutes. I change the system of this every few months, according to what kind of problems I actually have. After that, if I don't have any new work urgent to learn, I play old pieces from my repertoire, usually by heart. Bach's Partita in A minor, for example, comes up often.
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What kind of goals do you set for your practice?
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It may sound strange, but my goal every morning is to 'finally learn to play the flute'. In the first hour of my daily practice, I sometimes feel like a beginner, my flute almost doesn't sound. It often happens in the second hour as well...
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Do you have a specific structure for warm-up and practice sessions?
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When I follow my established system, I start with flutter-tonguing, followed by some 'chugging’. The latter means making short, strong, jerky sounds without tonguing for me. This also helps me regain and activate the physical condition necessary to play the flute. After that comes the practice described by Quantz, starting in the low register, increasing intervals, at a slow tempo, separate notes. For example d - e -d- f# -d - g etc. Then long notes come crescendo-diminuendo. After some break, I play scales in the second 40-45 minutes, in a different key every day, going through the circle of fifths, for example C major on Monday, G Major on Tuesday, etc. First frullato, then legato in normal sound, then double tonguing (di'dl). The latter in all kinds of tempos and combinations. Double tonguing only works if all parameters are in order: support, air speed, etc. At the end of the warm-up, I play fast scales with double tonguing up and down. I play the slow exercises in all keys (7#-7b), the fast ones up to 5 sharps and 4 flats.
The warm-up (if I do it) is more or less the same every day. Everything else depends on the situation. If I don't feel like or have no time to practice repertoire, I don't do anything else but warming-up. |
Any distinctive characteristics of baroque flute daily practice vs. modern flute or other instruments?
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I last picked up a modern flute more than 20 years ago. And I've been playing exclusively on Quantz replicas for about 15 years. Just everything. Basically I don't play repertoire composed before 1710 and ca. after 1760. Even if I had a lot of time, I wouldn't play classical music on a classical flute, I find it completely uninteresting. I used to play the renaissance flute long time ago, but I don't have time for that anymore. Maybe I'll come back to it someday. So I can't comment on the modern flute. When, long ago, I played both instruments, modern and baroque, it was a very bad feeling. I can't think with a modern head on Monday and with a baroque on Tuesday. I can apply little of my past modern-flute studies to the baroque flute. I graduated from the conservatory in Budapest, played the most important repertoire, then put the silver instrument away, basically I've always hated it. However, there are some technical and methodological insights from the last 100 years or so, which were developed during the course of teaching and playing the modern flute. For example, we know more about the physiology of breathing than we did 300 years ago. Our neurological knowledge is also better than in the Baroque era. Certain teaching methods have developed over the past few generations, some of which can be used. Or just to see how bad these methods are sometimes, and to come up with better ones in teaching the baroque flute. The contemporary, extended techniques in the playing style of the modern flute can help a lot in developing an even more flexible baroque flute technique, just a few examples: playing multiphonics can help stabilize the sound. Practicing extreme glissandos and intonation deviations (with a given grip +1 / -1 minor second deviation in intonation) helps to expand our dynamic and intonation abilities. Circular breathing, which I use very often, causes a bit of a dilemma: it is actually a modern technique, as it has only been used on flutes since the middle of the 20th century. I've been using it since I was 15, sometimes I don't even notice it. I'm not going to interrupt a long phrase at a concert performance, just because it's not authentic technique. Lately, I've been practicing to be able to breathe during passages with did'll tonguing. This is almost impossible, but maybe doable, it takes a lot of practice. Circular breathing improves the traditional breathing technique, because it is necessary to make breathing even more conscious and precise. And it gets you used to making the back of the mouth cavity much larger. This helps to achieve a higher but natural volume when paired with proper support.
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What are the key elements and unmissable points of daily practice?
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From a technical point of view, perhaps the most important thing is support and good breathing. More important than embouchure, throat, posture, etc. Sometimes I forget this and focus too much on just the embouchure. And everything is only going to get worse because of it.
Regarding the goal of practice, the most important thing is to achieve a stable sound, a very wide dynamic range and very good intonation. It is extremely important in my practice to distinguish the character, intonation and technical challenges of each tonality, including, for example, specific fingerings. Therefore, I don't practice two different tonalities during the warm-up on the same day. |
How long and distributed should warm-up and practice be?
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If I only have an hour on a day and there is no upcoming concert or performance, it's just a warm-up. Ideally, 60-90 minutes of warm-up and another 2-3 hours of work on the new pieces. But often it will end up being less.
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Any specific tip to address difficult technical passages during daily practice?
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No, there isn't one. My warm up routine covers these things. Sometimes I work with intonation separately. But basically, I always focus on the work to be learned at the moment. I will try to solve the technical problems that arise in this. I like to play difficult pieces because then I don't get bored while practicing. That's why I started the Quantz project (www.the-quantz-project.com), which means recording ca. 200 sonatas, but if everything goes well, I'll also start the ca. 300 concertos. These are quite difficult pieces, but they are characterized by certain types of recurring situations in a technical sense. Of course, after learning 50 sonatas, the technical problems that arise in the 51st are no longer so difficult. But why should I practice combinations that never appear in the repertoire I play?? There is never a fast chromatic scale in Quantz's pieces, and in the works of other, better Baroque composers, why should I waste my time practicing it? NB: that particular 'Capriccio 1' [Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (DK-Kk): mu 6310.0860 Giedde's collection I.17], which runs under Quantz's name and contains a longer chromatic scale, is not Quantz's composition, but presumably of Buffardin, who was a virtuoso flautist and a very bad composer.
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Are there any tools that are particularly useful for practicing?
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The tuner is a good tool. Even better would be a cellist playing long notes next to me, and I would practice playing perfect intervals based on the bass notes played by the cellist. I never use the tuner to MEASURE intonation. Only for sound generation, on which I build a Major triad, from the lowest to the highest note. So, for example, I set the tuner to generate a D, and I slowly play along with it D-F#-A-D etc. notes. It's great for that, but not for anything else.
The mirror is a good thing, but I rarely use it. It is more important to be able to imagine myself with closed eyes. The mirror is good for control, but not as a permanent aid. I sometimes use a metronome, but not for practice, just for testing. For example, to test at what tempo a fast movement ‘feels good’. This may be necessary before CD recording. |
Any other general advice, suggestion, tip?
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Good physical and mental condition is sometimes more important than the length of practice or what we practice. Before concerts, I have to pay attention not only to the practicing, but also to feel good on the day of the concert and during the performance. For a good physical and mental condition, more sleep, more sports, good sex, and listening to Mozart or Brahms string quartets before a performance are more important than exercise.
I don't have a concert every day. Therefore, the period before the concert is more stressful. And that's why it's often best if I don't even practice right before a performance, at least for a day. I don't know if this tip helps anyone else, but it does for me. |
How do you advise your students as far as structuring their daily practice?
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I often recommend, but not to everyone, that preferably at the beginning of the day, in the morning hours, warm up and possibly do exercises. And then take as long a break as possible before practicing the repertoire. And not to practice too much.
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Do you suggest or teach a warm-up routine?
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No. We define together what the goal is in a technical sense. This is always determined by the particular piece of music to be learned. If the goal and the problem have been formulated precisely, then the student must find the appropriate method for the solution himself. Of course, I give a few ideas, but basically I don't like to force anything on the student. The most important thing is to develop self-control. I often ask them to play a little part of a difficult passage very slowly, with their eyes closed. This can help them discover what they are doing wrong. For example, which muscles are stretched unnecessarily.
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Are there any specific pieces particularly beneficial to be played regularly in daily practice?
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No, there isn't one. I consider the etudes and exercises senseless. If one of my students definitely wants to practice something like this, because they see it from others, then of course I give them suggestions for certain etudes. See also the 'Final comments' section.
If a student does play etudes, it is very important that those etudes do not come from early/late classical or romantic flute methods. Many people play, for example, from the etudes of De Lusse, Devienne, Fürstenau, etc. This makes no sense, because the sound ideal, the motions and the musical situations practiced in them are far from baroque aesthetics. |
Some final comments...
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Some thoughts that are related to the above questions, but require further elaboration.
I believe that my skills and possibilities for playing the flute are far from being optimal. My mouth structure is not really suitable for flute playing, my lips are thick, my tongue is not optimal, I have had asthma since I was a baby, and I was a heavy smoker for decades, now less so. I never had a very good flute that I was completely satisfied with. And after almost ten years of living in the Netherlands - 4 years of which were studies in Barthold Kuijken's class - I returned to my homeland, where the opportunities are much more limited. But I tried to compensate these disadvantages with conscious, hard work, which ultimately benefited me: I have to practice better and more consciously than others. I have to suffer a lot for every beautiful note. Due to asthma and smoking, my lung capacity is maybe smaller than others, so I had to develop a very good breathing technique. Due to my thick and unfavorable lips, I have to work ten times harder for a good sound and a stable embouchure than other flutists. And because of the limited opportunities in Hungary, my imagination can soar more freely: that's why I invented the Quantz Project. And since I still have so many problems that I have to solve again and again every day, my teaching is perhaps more authentic than many other teachers. After all, there is a lot in common between me and my students. We think about solutions together. I ask them a lot. And I learn a lot from them. Therefore, I can say that for me, my own practice and teaching mean the same thing. I never sang, never learned to sing. But when I was younger I had two key readings: the chapter on singing in Robert Donington’s book Baroque Music: Style and Performance. The book itself is of course very old and outdated. But this chapter is very good and very important to understanding what singing might have been like in the 18th century. When I read this, I listened a lot to the recordings Donington refers to, recordings of singers from the very early 20th century. And another article by Marietta Amstad “Das berühmte Notenblatt des Porpora - Die Fundamentalübungen der Belcanto-Schule” (1969). I think this article basically defined how I imagine the sound of the baroque flute. And, of course, Quantz's book, and within that, again, the many comments that apply to singing. Read his autobiography too! A very interesting piece of writing and full of very thorough descriptions of the very many singers he met. I think the most important thing in making a baroque flute sound is to imitate an imaginary baroque era singer with it. And of course, it would be great if everyone learned to sing along with the flute. I regret it was not part of my studies. About practicing: let laziness be our guiding principle! We should never spend a single unnecessary minute practicing. Don't repeat a measure unnecessarily! And with every minute of practice, let's be aware of the purpose of this! You can only give good answers to good questions... Technical problems should only be practiced in a musical context. For example, in a real musical context, a sustained longer note has an optimal curve, development, progression, and dynamics. If this long note is defined by a good piece of music, it can and should be practiced a lot. But playing etudes won't help with that. And this also applies to fast passages. With practice, we primarily train our nervous system and brain. Therefore, in extreme cases, it is also possible to learn a new, difficult piece without even picking up the flute. If we imagine the necessary motions and mouth positions very slowly and very intensively, then we will be able to play the piece flawlessly without any practice. Of course, this does not apply to beginners. One of the most important goals of the technical part of practice should be understanding. To understand what exactly is the source of the problem. We need to analyze very precisely why a seemingly impossible turn is not successful. Sometimes the cause is a microscopic inaccuracy in the movement of the fingers. This is not helped by hours of mindless repetition. After the exact analysis, we hardly need to practice. It's too bad that most young flutists would rather practice 6 hours a day than use their brains for 20 minutes. |