“Being a pedagogue means always putting yourself in the student’s soul and never asking for the opposite.”

“Many years of experience have taught me that you can never predict whether and how much development potential there is in a student after a single year of study.

And so it’s one of the worst things to have to tell a young person after several years of working together that you can’t see a future for him as a conductor.

His justified question as to why he hadn’t been told this earlier usually remains unanswered.

Singing is and remains the most important thing

I require each of my students to sing in the choir regularly. Singing is and remains the most important thing, no matter in which form you make music. Breathing naturally, and thereby learning to form phrases, is essential.

How wonderful it is to experience when young people, in their love of music, hit the mark without limits, ignoring tempos and dynamic regulations. If you’re not exaggerating at 25, I don’t want to listen to you when you’re 50.

When someone comes into my class and is deeply influenced by a great role model, I always try to bring that role model to the fore, regardless of what I think about them.

As soon as the young person conducting has understood that he does not have to defend his great master against me, he begins to find himself and to listen a little to what I want to pass on to him.

Teaching the Genius

The hardest part is teaching the genius. Either they don’t want to see any limits, or they only see them and despair of their own claims. The stupidest thing you can say to your students is that you have the most beautiful instrument in the world before you.

In this way, they learn to despise people who are not infrequently much more gifted than themselves.

Breathe with Music

Teach your students to breathe with music: the singer must do it, and so must the brass player. the pianists, the strings, and we have forgotten it.

Never try to develop a conducting school. They don’t exist. Teach your students that not only the “what” but also the “how” of their requests to the choir, orchestra, singers, etc., is important.

More and more, I prefer full working weeks to normal classes. That’s the only way everyone can constantly learn from everyone else; that’s the only way I can recognize a new variation in a young person’s personality every day.

Subsequent breaks in class serve to process and develop everything that has been learned.

Being a teacher does not mean losing valuable time conducting and damaging your own career. It means learning something in every lesson that you weren’t aware of before.

A glorious discovery!”