G.P.

It is already the 5th day of the master class, but it took me this long to find an internet cafe where I can type with a normal speed and do not have to yield some Hungarian special keys on the keyboard... So, I am in Budapest and having a great time, working evenings with pianists and mornings with the "Liszt - Wagner" orchestra. I have taken some photos, but have to wait until I get to Finland to add them here. But you know, it is the usual stuff - someone conducting an orchestra or two pianos, the professor from back, the professor from side etc. etc. Someone eating or drinking, or a view from a lake... Yes, tomorrow we are actually going to have a free evening at some lake! But now to the actual masterclass stuff which for sure will interest some conducting students.

Day 1: We saw maestro Simonov run through the whole master class repertoire with the Wagner-Liszt orchestra. That alone was a sight to see! He was following a pre-planned schedule to the minute! So he must have calculated the lenght of all the pieces in his tempo, and also planned which pieces are so hard that it is worth playing them through twice. His way of conducting was quite hectic, but he explained us later that he was showing a huge amount of information especially for this purpose, so that he would not need to stop and explain something.

The opening ceremony

Day 2: We had a small lunch and an opening ceremony of the master class. Maestro Simonov told us very proudly that it is already his 9th master class in Hungary, which is his favorite country in the world. I learned that more than half of the participants had done the master class several times. We also drew lots for the beginning of the piano sessions and I drew the first one! So I had to retire early from the lunch, just to prepare myself a little.

Cyril and Maja

So I had to start the piano session with the Bizet symphony, which I luckily had studied for a competition last year. At the piano we had four pianists and a brilliant arrangement of the work for eight hands - by Igor, one of the master class participants! It was a useful lesson, and the professor was not as tough on me as I had feared. He mostly is worried about very basic things like your standing posture, the working level of your hands etc. But he scolded me for having library scores which I am afraid to fill with markings! After the lesson he showed me his scores which have a logical and complete system of marking.

Christian joins the percussion section

Day 3: Our first orchestra session. The time tables are so tight that in fact there is no time to rehearse. We just run the pieces through to make sure that what we learned in the piano class is a valid and working way to conduct the orchestra. Only if something goes really wrong does the professor stop and help us out.

Gregory conducts Kodaly

It was 10 o-clock in the morning and I was the first one to face the sleepy orchestra, but I think everything went fairly well with the two first movements of the Bizet symphony. After that I listened to everyone else. The 17 active participants are all different ages and at different stages of their development. It is marvelous to listen and watch how every person creates (voluntarily or unvoluntarily) a different sound with the orchestra!

Maestro shows György example

In the evening we had another session of the same pieces with the pianists. The idea is to always work the new pieces with pianists before you go to the orchestra the next day.

Day 4: We had our second orchestra rehearsal with Bizet and Kodaly pieces. In the afternoon we started to work on the overtures by Mozart, Cimarosa, Rossini, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn.