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What is with the flute player in the NY Phil under LB?

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2.1K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  hammeredklavier  
#1 ·
I love many recordings of Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic that were released on Sony. The energy, interpretation, historical significance, all of it.....

.....except the flute player.

I don't even know his name, and he obviously is well educated and talented.....

.....but that VIBRATO. OMG, that VIBRATO is so bloody annoying! It's so wide and fast it's like the music equivalent of an EKG during an anxiety attack.

I first noticed it listening to Shostakovich 5th near the end of the 1st movement when the horn and flute have a duet, but there are many other examples.

It can't be just me. I've never heard a musician from a major symphony orchestra play in a way that annoys me so much. Were there not music critics commenting on this at the time, or was it something no one really minded?
 
H
#2 ·
John Wummer - great player, had a long, illustrious career...he was the original principal flute in NBCSO under Toscanini [1937]...in 1942 he became principal with NYPO, a position which he held until 1965....Julius Baker was his successor...

The big vibrato was very much in vogue when he began his career...other great musicians played with the same style - Walter Guetter [bssn], Wm. Polisi [bssn] to name just a couple....that was the style that was taught...by the 60s, this had moderated quite a bit...vibrato is still taught and used widely, but not as pronounced as the previous generation.
 
#6 ·
Wummer was taught by Georges Barrère, who played in the premiere of Debussy's Prélude à l'Aprés-midi d'un faune in December 1894 and was noted for a naturally produced rapid bird-like vibrato. Barrère, however, discouraged excessive vibrato of any kind. According to Barrère, "For three hundred years flutists tried to play in tune. Then they gave up and invented vibrato. For the fifty years I've been tooting my instrument, my daily care was to avoid vibrato. Today, to declare that expression might sometimes be achieved just by the absence of vibrato, would, in most quarters, only earn an incredulous frown. Isn't it still possible to express beauty by pure lines, such as we find in ancient Greek marbles?" Wummer was the last of the fast vibrato school, though his vibrato slowed down in later years.
 
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