It became an exciting experience just to beat time. It was always a question of what happened between the beats how the music moved from one beat to the next: Von-end-two-end-tri-end-four-end. I can hear his voice now, showing me how he wanted me to beat a slow tempo of four beats, smoothly, or as musicians say, legato. Even the purely mechanical matter of beating time, of conducting four beats in a bar, became an emotional experience, not a mathematical one. He taught everything through feeling, through instinct and emotion. He got through to his pupils by simply inspiring them. And the same magic he brought to it he brought to everything he did, especially to his teaching. I wish you could all have heard that beautiful little piece played by Koussevitzky. Here is the Prelude to Mossorgsky's opera Khovanshchina. When Koussevitzky played this music he managed to produce an almost magic spell, which we, his students, still remember in our ears and his performance remains a model we can strive all our lives to equal. That's a long name, but it's a very short piece it describes the sunrise on the Moscow River everything still and sleepy, interrupted only by the occasional crowing of roosters, and the booming of bells from the Moscow steeples. So we are going to play a Russian piece that was a great favorite of his: The lovely, quiet prelude to Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina. Koussevitzky was a Russian, and he dearly loved Russian music. I would like to start our music today with a tribute to his memory. On top of that, he created the famous summer school at Tanglewood, known as The Berkshire Music Center and it was there, in 1940, that I was lucky enough to become his pupil, and eventually his close friend. He was one of the greatest conductors of all time, and for 25 years led the magnificent Boston Symphony Orchestra to a position where it was known as the finest orchestra in the world. I am not sure how many of you young people know that famous name, but you ought to. I want to begin with a teacher who is still one of the strongest influences in my life, even though he has been dead now for 12 years - Serge Koussevitzky. And the best way I can think of for me to do this is by paying tribute to some of my own teachers, who, over the last 30 years, have given me so much musical joy and inspiration. It is also the most unappreciated, underrated, underpaid, and underpraised profession in the world.Īnd so today we are going to praise teachers. Teaching is probably the noblest profession in the world - the most unselfish, difficult, and honorable profession. The trouble is that we don't always realize how important teachers are, in music or in anything else.
Tribute to my favorite teacher professional#
We can all think of a self-taught painter or writer, but it is almost impossible to imagine a professional musician who doesn't owe something to one teacher or another. After all, aren't these programs always about music? And what have teachers got to do with music? The answer is: everything. My dear young friends: You may think it strange that I have chosen to open this new season with the subject of teachers.
Original CBS Television Network Broadcast Date: 29 November 1963
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