Barry Tuckwell: A Life with French Horn

VOICEOVER
Welcome to Melbourne University Up Close, a fortnightly podcast of research, personalities, and cultural offerings of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Up Close is available on the web at upclose.unimelb.edu.au That!|s upclose.u-n-i-m-e-l-b.edu.au.

SIAN PRIOR
Hello and welcome to Up Close, coming to you from Melbourne University, Australia. I!|m Sian Prior, and today we are going to meet one of Australia!|s most acclaimed musicians. A man who has had a distinguished international career, as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher and conductor. Barry Tuckwell started playing the French horn at the age of 13. Only two years later he was playing in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and he has never looked back. During a career spanning six decades, he has made over 50 recordings and received three Grammy nominations. Among the many awards Barry has received are the Companion of the Order of Australia, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Honorary Doctor of Music from the University of Sydney, and Fellow of the Royal College of Music. He is also an Honorary Member of both the Royal Academy of Music and the Guild Hall School of Music in London. And he is a Professorial Fellow here at the University of Melbourne. Barry Tuckwell, welcome to Up Close.

BARRY TUCKWELL
Thank you.

SIAN PRIOR
Now, Barry, I want to take you back to the beginning of it all. You did just a couple of years study of a musical instrument and suddenly you were playing in a capital city symphony orchestra. How did this happen?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Well, I could already read music and I had learnt to play the piano and the organ and had even tried to play the violin. And there was an occasion when my sister was sitting in the Margarita Coffee Lounge in Sydney with Charles Mackerras (now Sir Charles) -

SIAN PRIOR
The conductor?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Yes. He was the first oboe in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Richard Merriweather, who was the second horn, and they were all of the same age and they used to drink coffee together and that sort of thing. And the subject of me came up. And they said, !¢FDhe is musical. He must be able to play something.!| And Richard Merriweather said, !¢FDwould you like to try the horn?!| And, he gave me few lessons and I could play it. I had an aptitude for it. So, all I had to do was to learn to play the instrument, not to read music.

SIAN PRIOR
And why do you think you had an aptitude for that instrument in particular, because it is notoriously difficult. I mean, the French horn section, is the section, in my memory, as a former orchestral musician, where you heard the most fluffed notes coming from.

BARRY TUCKWELL
I!|d hesitate to say it is more difficult than any other instrument, but you tend to notice when it goes wrong. And that is one of the aspects of horn playing !V we feel we are martyrs and not respected for what we can do. Because a pianist plays ten wrong notes in a concerto, nobody pays any attention. We only have to miss one -

SIAN PRIOR
Everybody hears it. But getting back to this question, what was it about the instrument that clicked with you, do you think?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Oh, I thought it was easy. Only one note at a time. And mostly in the treble clef and mostly in the five lines. And you didn!|t go beyond a couple of ledger lines, so it was easy, from that point of view. Oh, I just think I had the right sort of lips and that sort of thing. Whereas, on the keyboard, I was clumsy. I am still slow with my fingers. So, I don!|t have manual dexterity in that sense. And what you need for the horn is much less; you don!|t play quite as quickly.

SIAN PRIOR
Hmmm. You are from a musical family, you were talking about your sister. Tell us about the musical background of your family.

BARRY TUCKWELL
My father and his three siblings, all had perfect pitch and were all extremely gifted instrumentalists. And my father was the only one who pursued it as a performing career. And he played the organ, but mostly the mighty Wurlitzer in the theatres because that!|s where you got paid. And so, music was always in my environment.

SIAN PRIOR
And did you always expect that you would become a musician, or did you have other thoughts about possible careers?

BARRY TUCKWELL
No. It never occurred to me for one moment that I!|d be a professional musician. But when I started to play the horn it seemed that there was no choice. That is what I was going to do.

SIAN PRIOR
So, how long did you spend the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Less than a year, and then I went back to Sydney. I was 15, 16 years old and I think there was pressure from home that I should be down here all alone in this dangerous city.

SIAN PRIOR
And did you go back to continue as an orchestral musician? Because I think you played with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for a while, didn!|t you?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I was with the Sydney Orchestra for nearly four years. And then a lot of musicians, Australians in particular, had the urge to go abroad. And I have to say that Eugene Goosens, who was the conductor then, encouraged us. He didn!|t say !¢FDno, you have to stay in my orchestra!|. He said, !¢FDyes, go abroad and get some experience.!| Knowing that we would want to come back. He was very enlightened in many ways.

SIAN PRIOR
Why did so many Australian musicians, at that time !V well, and still today, of course !V feel the need to go overseas? Is it because there simply wasn!|t the population and therefore, the level of cultural activity in this country?

BARRY TUCKWELL
To some extent. But I have to say that when I went to London, I was disappointed in the programs, that were presented to us orchestrally. Was it a Mozart night, a Beethoven night, I thought we did a much more interesting repertoire. But that was Goosens. He always included something unusual in every concert !V with Mahler symphonies, which nobody knew, Bruckner symphonies, The Rite of Spring. Music that !V if you performed that in London at the time, you!|d have an empty house. But I think you have to bear in mind at that time, we heard a lot of good music, but there was always this feeling that you wanted to go to Europe. Because there!|s so much more going on. And in particular London, because every night there!|s probably two operas, and three symphony concerts and five chamber music concerts. Every night of the week. So, there is a lot to choose from.

SIAN PRIOR
An embarrassment of riches. Well, you had great success, Barry, playing in various British orchestras, including the Scottish Symphony, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and then the London Symphony Orchestra, where you stayed, I think for about 13 years, as principal horn player. What was your favourite repertoire as an orchestral musician? Which composer!|s works did you most enjoy, playing?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Brahms. [laughs]

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs] Why? Why Brahms?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Every note for whatever horn part you are playing !V Brahms!| symphonies, concertos, serenades !V you feel was written for you. He wrote beautifully for the horn. He understood the instrument. And even if it is not a solo, you felt that you were doing something very constructive and worthwhile.

SIAN PRIOR
Any others that you care to mention?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I love Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss. Widescreen composers.

SIAN PRIOR
Yes, Richard Strauss, is interesting isn!|t he? He seems to me to be another composer who had an affinity with the French horn and his father was a French horn player, is that right?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Yes. Franz Joseph Strauss was the first horn in the orchestra in Munich. And so obviously, he had great influence on his son for how to write for the instrument.

SIAN PRIOR
And there is a lovely story about Richard Strauss, which I think I read on some CD liner notes, that you wrote, Barry, that, when he was a baby, when he heard the violin he cried and when he heard the French horn he smiled.

BARRY TUCKWELL
I!|m sure it is true. Because the high sounds of the violin quite often disturb dogs. Because my sister practiced the violin !V that!|s where I learnt the violin repertoire, and we had a little terrier dog who used to howl and scream and put his paws over his ears. They hear extra sounds that we don!|t hear. And perhaps Richard Strauss was a bit like that.

SIAN PRIOR
I!|m Sian Prior and you!|re listening to Melbourne University Up Close, where our guest today is, musician, conductor and international recording artist, Barry Tuckwell. A professorial fellow here at the University of Melbourne. Barry, you eventually left the London Symphony Orchestra, to pursue a career as a soloist, how did the decision come about and was it a hard one?

BARRY TUCKWELL
It wasn!|t a hard decision to make. And it came about because my solo career was developing enormously, and I had responsibilities to play with the London Symphony Orchestra and I was able to get off a lot, but I wanted to be able to get off more. And at that time, the freelance world, for musicians in London was fantastic. Not just symphonic music, but studios, movie music, all that sort of stuff. And I thought, well I can leave the orchestra, and when I am not doing my solo gig I can fill it in with studio work. It didn!|t work out that way because the solo work developed to such an extent that I was never really free to do the studio work.

SIAN PRIOR
What makes the difference, do you think, between a fine orchestral musician and a musician who can have a successful solo career?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I think the answer to that is attitude. Playing in an orchestra, you are necessarily a part of a team. And you must be. Even if you don!|t like the interpretation that is required of you, by the conductor. You have to conform. Otherwise the performance is of no focus. I used to get fed up with a conductor who would ask us to do certain things. And, as any child at school, an orchestral musician will slightly disobey the instructions or over react, just to see if the teacher is on his or her toes. And if the conductor does let us get away with it, what!|s the point? We are just each going his own way. So, you have to conform. Be part of a team. Then, if you are going to play a solo, you have to be the one who dictates the interpretation and sometimes it is difficult to move from one role to the other. And I used to find that switching back and forth a problem.

SIAN PRIOR
So, you were a disobedient principal French horn player. Is that what you are saying?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Of course.

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs]

BARRY TUCKWELL
It!|s very possible in orchestras to get cynical and bored and that is awful. Then you just get angry. That is no fun at all. But you do have !V as a soloist or as a chamber musician !V to get more initiative in interpretation and that is something I love. Actually, that is something that I miss, not playing. Working at a phrase. How am I going to play that one note in relation to the other note? These sorts of things, which may seem subtle, but it is what makes a performance so fascinating.

SIAN PRIOR
The pleasure of the craft.

BARRY TUCKWELL
Yes, it is both an art and a craft.

SIAN PRIOR
Barry, quite a few composers, have created quite a few new works, specifically for you, during your career, including a composer called Oliver Knussen, who wrote a horn concerto for you, what can you tell us about how this work came about and about Knussen himself.

BARRY TUCKWELL
I knew Ollie, when he was a baby. And obviously a genius then. So, I!|m !¢FDUncle Barry!| with Ollie. And one day we were doing some concerts together. He was conducting, I was playing in Edinburgh, and we were having dinner. And he was saying, I!|ve got this commission from the Suntory Foundation in Japan, to write a piece, !¢FDwould it!| !V he hesitatedly asked !V I think it was after the second bottle of wine, !¢FDbe okay I wrote a piece for you?!| I said, !¢FDOllie, I!|ve not had the courage to ask you to do that. For years, I!|ve wanted to ask you to do that.!| So that!|s how that happened. And he had been in one of his periodic states of depression as a composer and couldn!|t write anything. And this got him out of this. That wonderful moment in his life. It is a very personal work. He wrote it for me, for !¢FDUncle Barry!|. And it was a joy to play.

SIAN PRIOR
Well, let!|s have a listen to a short excerpt of the horn concerto, composed by Oliver Knussen for Barry Tuckwell.

SIAN PRIOR
That!|s Barry Tuckwell playing an excerpt from Oliver Knussen!|s Concerto for French Horn, conducted by the composer himself, and written for Barry Tuckwell. And Barry is our guest today here on Melbourne University Up Close, coming to you from the Melbourne University website. Barry, an incredibly virtuosic piece to play, and it reminded me of our discussion earlier, about whether or not the French horn is a difficult instrument to play. Can we talk a little bit about the instrument? Can you give us, a very brief, potted history of where the modern version of the French horn has come from?

BARRY TUCKWELL
It is not all that modern. And the significant thing that happened to all brass instruments was when valves were invented in the beginning of the 19th century. And before that, the horn and other brass instruments were just a length of tubing, and as its name might imply, it comes from an animal horn, and a short animal horn, you can probably only get one or two notes out of. You just buzz your lips into one end of the piece of tubing and miraculously a noise will come out of it. They did it on conch shells in the Pacific as well. And the longer the tube, you!|ll find, you can get, what we call a harmonic series. All sorts of extra notes. And a long instrument !V a horn is about 12 feet long, four meters long. You can get quite a substantial number of notes and even, although they are restricted to, basically, the major scale, it is surprising what you can do. And the baroque music, Bach, and Telemann, and Handel was written for such an instrument. What valves do, is to give you extra loops of tubing, which you can add onto the tubing, like turning on a switch, or a gas tap really. And it sends it on a detour of extra tubing and it gives you the same sequence of notes in another key. So you basically get half a dozen, sets of the harmonic series, and you!|ve got a chromatic scale. Previously to that, they found that if you put you hand inside the bell of an instrument, people often wonder why horn players have got their hands stuck up the bell, well, you can modify the position of the hand and bend the notes, so you can play deeeohhhheeeeoohhhhhh. A skilled player can make them sound all the same. Although, if you are not, you can tell if some notes are muffled and some are not. And this was the sort of instrument that Mozart wrote his concertos and chamber music for.

SIAN PRIOR
And what is French about it?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Nothing.

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs]

BARRY TUCKWELL
It would seem that every country called it !¢FDhorn!|, but in England, the horn, the hunting horn, is short, but the French hunting horn is longer. And we think that is why it was called the French horn. And there is this thing called the International Horn Society where we are prohibited from using the term, French horn. But I use it all the time. Because !V particularly, in the jazz world, the oboe is called a !¢FDhorn!|. So, which horn do you mean? Brass instruments, you!|ve got a flugel-horn, you!|ve got a tenor horn, which one do you mean? And then there is a basset horn, which of course is a clarinet. It is not even a horn. So, why should we be politically correct and say !¢FDhorn!| when nobody knows what we are talking about?

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs] Way too confusing. Are there great horn solos, Barry, that are so well-known that you would hear people whistling them on the street?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Well, in the orchestral world, I don!|t know if people whistle it, but there is a great long solo in the slow movement of Tchaikovksy!|s fifth symphony. Which is on every audition that you go to. And of course, there is a big, what we call a !¢FDhorn call!| in the Wagner opera, Siegfried, and that is just for horn alone who is on stage, and that is a great thrill to play.

SIAN PRIOR
Yes, Wagner loved the horn, didn!|t he? Why do you think Wagner loved that instrument so much? What was he able to get from the horn that suited his very romantic temperament?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Well, I'm immediately going to alienate and upset my colleagues on other brass instruments, but the horn is better, in my opinion, at playing melodies than either the trumpet or the trombone, who are good at other things, which the horn is not as good at. And I think that is what distinguishes the horn - is the tone colour. And the different sorts of moods you can get from the horn and it is very suitable for sustained music. And certainly, in the orchestra we would spend a lot of time in a supporting role with the bassoons adding colour. And you get used to doing that. It!|s really quite interesting. And when a solo comes in a Brahms symphony or something like that, of course, you!|re delighted.

SIAN PRIOR
I!|m Sian Prior and you!|re listening to Melbourne University Up Close, where our guest today is French horn player, Barry Tuckwell. Barry, you!|ve also had a distinguished career as a conductor, yourself, when did that begin and was that part of being a disobedient orchestral musician, you thought you could do it better?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I!|ve always been fascinated by interpretation. And so, growing up, interpretation of the orchestral repertoire interested me. And so, little by little, with student groups I started conducting. Chamber orchestras. And it just developed. I didn!|t think of it !V I didn!|t want to be !¢FDthe maestro!|, you know the power you have. Because I was well aware of the power you don!|t have. If you are a duff conductor, you are mincemeat.

SIAN PRIOR
And that didn!|t frighten you off knowing what you might face from a rebellious orchestra?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I think a little bit, but then I thought, !¢FDI know most of the tricks.!| And in fact, I invented some of them. So, !¢FDyou try and catch me out.!| That is part of the game.

SIAN PRIOR
Who have been your role models as conductors?

BARRY TUCKWELL
The one conductor that stands out for me was Leopold Stokowski. He was the greatest manipulator of orchestral sound that there has ever been. No one ever found out what it was that he did, but he would make an orchestra sound like Stokowski!|s orchestra. He had a way !V he was a magician in some !V he was mystical. He!|s been dismissed as a charlatan, and cheap and all those sorts of things. Because, what did he do? He made movies. That was after he left the Philadelphia orchestra because he wanted music to be more available to people. Very, very creative man. There is a list, a mile long of the things he did first, before anyone else.

SIAN PRIOR
You!|ve also performed and recorded a lot of chamber music, in your career, what are the particular pleasures for you, in playing with a chamber group?

BARRY TUCKWELL
By chance, a group of us ex-Australians, got together as a trio. That was Brenton Langbein, the violinist, and Maureen Jones who is the pianist. And we were asked to go to Edinburgh to play the trio by Brahms for violin, horn and piano. And also a newly commissioned work by Don Banks.

SIAN PRIOR
An Australian composer.

BARRY TUCKWELL
Another Australian. And we continued to be a trio, until, sadly, Brenton died. I think I would have probably still played the horn, to keep the trio going. If he had survived. I keep talking about them, because it was special with Maureen and Brenton. We had some connection !V not that we didn!|t argue. But we tended to play well together. There was a fusion. Which they used to call in Italian, the fusione.

SIAN PRIOR
Well, let!|s have a listen to a recording of your trio. Barry Tuckwell performing with Brenton Langbein and Maureen Jones. And this is the Don Banks Horn Trio.

SIAN PRIOR
That is a recording of Barry Tuckwell playing the Don Banks Horn Trio, with the other members of the trio, Brenton Langbein and Maureen Jones. And Barry Tuckwell is our guest here in Melbourne University Up Close. Barry, you had an official retirement. Are you still playing?

BARRY TUCKWELL
After I gave my last concert, which was about 10 years ago, I had no intention of playing again. I was living in Baltimore at the time, and I was asked to help them out on a European tour they were going to make and one of the horn players had had a quite serious accident to his face and couldn!|t do it. I said, !¢FDI haven!|t played for five years. I just can!|t pick the horn up.!| I knew that. The conversation went on. !¢FDWell, maybe you could play extra horn with the orchestra, when we need extras.!| I said, !¢FDsure. I might be interested.!| So then I went back and got the instrument out and played. For me it was hilarious because, the first time you play a brass instrument, you last for about one minute and you think your face is about to fall off. It starts to tremble and shudder. It hasn!|t happened to me since I was 13. But then I started to play a bit and practice and eventually I started playing extra horn, seventh horn in The Rite of Spring, eighth horn in a Wagner concert. I loved it. I was back in harness without the responsibility of having to play in a prominent position, leading a section.

SIAN PRIOR
Now, is it true, that at your final official performance before you quit, you performed Mozart?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I performed the Oliver Knussen concerto and Mozart Nr. 3. And in fact, that was the last piece I played in public.

SIAN PRIOR
They are probably amongst the most popular of the French horn repertoire, the Mozart concerti.

BARRY TUCKWELL
Yes, well, as a soloist, I think I played Mozart as a composer, more than any other composer. But the most popular, concerto, singular was the Richard Strauss, Nr. 1.

SIAN PRIOR
Interesting. Which is not unlike the Mozart, in some ways, isn!|t it?

BARRY TUCKWELL
Very popular. Very accessible. Lovely to listen to. Lovely tunes.

SIAN PRIOR
Well, we might go out today with a section of Mozart!|s third concerto for horn. The last movement, I think we are going to listen to. Do you think this is one of the best known works, for horn?

BARRY TUCKWELL
I think it is. I have to tell you a story about this last performance. A very good friend of mine, was coming to these concerts. He said, !¢FDI!|m coming to your last one. I!|ve got to hear your last note.!| And just before the last note, I think, certainly a split second, I thought, !¢FDI!|m not going to play it.!| So, !¢FDya dada da da da da!|. Of course the orchestra played.

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs]

BARRY TUCKWELL
Horn players of course knew what I had done. Because I looked down and there was Bobby, sitting there. I went 'di di di di di di di di' and looked him in the eye, and just took the instrument away for the last note.

SIAN PRIOR
[laughs]

BARRY TUCKWELL
So, the funny thing is, when I first played the horn. I was given some music to play, notated, and it was a middle C, for horn. I didn!|t get it. I played the harmonic below, so I missed my first note and left out the last note of my career.

SIAN PRIOR
All deliberate, no doubt. Well, let!|s have a listen to Barry Tuckwell performing the last movement of Mozart!|s third concerto for horn with the English Chamber Orchestra.

SIAN PRIOR
That was Barry Tuckwell performing Mozart!|s third concerto for horn, with the English Chamber Orchestra. Barry, it has been a great pleasure speaking with you today. Many thanks for coming in to here, Melbourne University Up Close.

BARRY TUCKWELL
It was my pleasure.

SIAN PRIOR
I!|m Sian Prior and my guest today has been the celebrated Australian French horn player, Barry Tuckwell, a professorial fellow here at Melbourne University.
Melbourne University Up Close is brought to you by the Marketing and Communications Division in association with Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Relevant links, a full transcript and more information on this episode can be found on our website, at upclose.unimelb.edu.au
We also invite you to leave your comments or feedback on this or any episode of UpClose. Simply click in the add new comment link at the bottom of the episode page. This program was produced by Kelvin Param, Eric van Bemmel and myself Sian Prior. Audio recording is by Dean Collett and the theme music is performed by Sergio Ercole. Melbourne University Up Close is created by Eric van Bemmel and Kelvin Param. Until next time thanks for joining us. Goodbye.
VOICEOVER
You!|ve been listening to Melbourne University Up Close, a fortnightly podcast of research, personalities and cultural offerings of the University of Melbourne, Australia. Up Close is available on the web at upclose.unimelb.edu.au, that!|s upclose.u-n-i-m-e-l-b.edu.au. Copyright 2007 University of Melbourne.