A quick addition to my earlier note. When I taught at the university I now and then was confronted with students who would not agree to my fundamental views, or even had an attitude toward science which I considered superficial and ill-educated. Obviously I tended to consider my own decade-long efforts a guarantee that I was certainly right and these students wrong. So my attitude towards the problem was "These guys are not so intelligent and dedicated as it should be, and therefore I will not work with them" rather than "These guys would not follow my way, and therefore I am angry." In any case, a dismissive attitude against some students would certainly send a signal to all students to behave obediently in order to please me. Bad thing of course, as my intention was to stimulate own thinking and creativity thus doubting and contradicting the teacher should be encouraged and even embraced rather than implicitly forbidden. So I had to educate myself to always take the student seriously, even if I think he or she is not worth the trouble. You can always ask the student why he or she holds a certain view or act a certain way and learn from it or/and explain your own view in a friendly manner.
I think Segovia had dedicated so much genius and effort into his views on music, interpretations, fingerings etc. that he was unable to imagine that a student could have done better, or simply could have done what is best for him at that point in his or her development. Some teachers think, students should follow them first then develop their own ideas, while others consider developing the students own mind so important that they should dare to think and get better in this over time - you have to start after all, allow yourself and be allowed to make errors of course - no need to be perfect from the beginning, and no justification to be looked upon for own thinking and being gratified for obedience. To support and encourage the students here even if it leads to that they may contradict you is certainly one of the great challenges for a teacher. Best Franz ----------------------- Dr. Franz Mechsner Zum Kirschberg 40 D-14806 Belzig OT Borne franz.mechs...@gmx.de +49(0)33841-441362 Gesendet: Sonntag, 15. Dezember 2013 um 05:09 Uhr Von: "Franz Mechsner" <franz.mechs...@gmx.de> An: "howard posner" <howardpos...@ca.rr.com> Cc: lutelist <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Betreff: [LUTE] Re: Bream Collection... I just noticed There are many stories out there about Segovia, among them quite a few about rude manners toward students who would not use his fingerings or, more gerneral, wouldn't play his way. There are even worse stories, which cannot easily be verified, so I prefer to be silent about them. He was not the only genius who was extremely kind and supporting to his admirers and those who followed his way but harsh, excluding and even terrifying to people with their own mind and those who simply did not manage cleverly enough to please him. Multi-faceted personality. Certainly problematic with students. Maybe there was a pressure that now comes out of them, with some neglect of the benefits they got out of studying with him. Another voice in this regard: [1][1]http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/14/john-williams-accuse s-s egovia-snob John Williams says guitar maestro Andres Segovia bullied students and stifled their creativity In a new biography, John Williams says his former teacher forced pupils to play in his style and was musically snobbish John Williams, left, has accused his former teacher, Andres Segovia, of snobbishness. Photographs: C. Christodoulou/Lebrecht; Erich Auerbach/Corbis Andres Segovia is revered as one of the greatest guitarists of the 20th century. But, 25 years after his death, his reputation is being challenged by one of his former students, the guitar virtuoso John Williams, who has attacked him as a musical and social snob who stifled creativity among his students. Williams, an Australian who lives in the UK, studied with the Spanish maestro in the 1950s and believes that Segovia looked down on music without the right classical provenance and bullied young musicians with teaching methods that were unsympathetic and unhelpful. His disparaging comments are to be published this month in a new biography, entitled Strings Attached: The Life and Music of John Williams. The author, William Starling, a friend, has had Williams's full co-operation. Starling told the Observer that Williams was "famously private", resisting the very notion of a biography until now: "His family and friends were amazed when he agreed to do it." He added that, despite being a pupil of Segovia, "he is very outspoken about [him] and the way Segovia is hailed as being the most important person in modern guitar". Starling reveals that Williams remembers Segovia making his students copy his every inflection - demands that he believes "undermined any sense of personal ownership of a piece". The biographer adds: "It was as if Segovia had... ordained that there was but one valid transcription, one interpretation and one fingering of anything in the repertoire and they were his own. John feels that, perhaps because of this, he never played his best for Segovia and that many of the maestro's students would have been better if they were not so constrained." Segovia is credited as the father of the classical guitar, having widened the repertoire, transcribing works originally for lute and harpsichord and breathing new life into the instrument. Williams studied under him at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, and is regarded as one of the foremost musicians of his generation, a master of the classical repertoire who brought the guitar to a wider audience with the group Sky and through collaborations involving the music of South America, Africa and jazz. Williams, whose recordings include Cavatina, a worldwide hit after it became the theme tune to the Oscar-winning film The Deer Hunter, reveals through the biography that, on a visit to London in 1977, Segovia heard him play Cavatina. The Spaniard commented that it was "a very pretty tune" and asked who wrote it, declining to add further praise or comment when told that it was Stanley Myers. Starling writes: "This is a perfect illustration of what John Williams characterises as the musical conservatism and snobbishness of Segovia. He liked the piece but was reluctant to give it credit because it did not have the right classical provenance." Segovia's snobbishness, Williams told Starling, included a dislike for South American music, especially that with popular roots. Williams struggles to understand why the Spaniard was dismissive of the Venezuelan guitarist Antonio Lauro and why he banned the Paraguayan Agustin Barrios from his classes. He also claims, through the biographer, that Segovia "sought to conceal his background" and "spun an image that he was from a cultured class. Segovia's desire for status was finally sated when he was ennobled in 1981 by King Juan Carlos." Graham Wade, classical guitarist and author of books on Segovia, defended the Spaniard, describing Williams's criticisms as unfair: "Segovia's pupils all played very differently. Segovia's guitar was always absolutely lyrical. He saw the guitar as a melodic instrument... John is perhaps the most technically accomplished guitarist the world has seen... A worthy successor to Segovia." EMI Classics, whose recordings include Segovia's performances, declined to comment. ----------------------- Dr. Franz Mechsner Zum Kirschberg 40 D-14806 Belzig OT Borne franz.mechs...@gmx.de +49(0)33841-441362 Gesendet: Sonntag, 15. Dezember 2013 um 00:30 Uhr Von: "howard posner" <howardpos...@ca.rr.com> An: lutelist <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Betreff: [LUTE] Re: Bream Collection... I just noticed On Dec 14, 2013, at 3:44 AM, gary <magg...@sonic.net> wrote: > Recently, a message was posted referring to Andres Segovia as a "bully". I think that's a little harsh, I know it's become popular to bash Segovia and that he had a huge ego, but I don't recall him actually bullying anyone into agreeing with his views. There were stories about him rigging competitions in favor of his chosen disciples and otherwise throwing his weight around, but it would be hard to confirm things like that, because people (other than Michael Chapdelaine, I suppose) don't like to admit to being bullied, and Segovia's cult of personality was such that it wasn't in the interest of anyone in the classical guitar community to criticize him openly. -- To get on or off this list see list information at [2][2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html References 1. [3]http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/14/john-williams-accuses-s egovia-snob 2. [4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html References 1. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/14/john-williams-accuses-s 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 3. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/14/john-williams-accuses-segovia-snob 4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
