A couple of weekends ago, the Greater Indianapolis Flute Club (GIFC) hosted a masterclass with Thomas Robertello at University of Indianapolis. I took notes that day and thought I would share some of them with you. I realized as I was typing up my notes that some of it would make more sense if you had been there, so please ask me if something isn’t clear!
Student #1: Burton Sonatina
With this student, he worked a lot on letting the emotion of the piece show through and taking risks with the music.
“If your options are more grandiose, there’s an option for failure.” Basically he was saying that he doesn’t go to a performance to hear someone play something perfectly but without any feeling. If you really go for it, you might get out of your comfort zone and possibly make a mistake, but at the same time you will really speak to the audience.
Use a “deeper, chewier” vibrato for this piece and use a “ha” sound instead of the tongue to start the note in the forte sections.
Student #2: J.S. Bach Sonata in E-flat Major, BWV 1031
1st Movement:
Pay close attention to the style of accompaniment, which is very light; use a light articulation in the flute part as well, but put “loving care on every note.” Use a “ha ha ha ha” sound on the 16th notes instead of “da da da da” to get that light sound.
One of his biggest pet peeves is using the wrong trill fingerings so he made sure to go over the correct trills:
For Ab to Bb in the middle register, use left hand 2 + 3, not just 2
For Eb to F, use right hand 2 + 3, not just 2
2nd Movement:
The way he described the feeling of this movement was pretty interesting, but definitely painted a picture: “You go home and find someone dead in your living room and time stops.” This movement should be played “sweetly sad.”
“You can’t breathe in until you’ve breathed out!” He worked a lot on getting in as much air as possible. Imagine you are trying to suck up the air from all the way across the room and breathe into your back, not just your abdomen. He did a couple of exercises having the student breathe all their air out first, then breathe all the way into their back, and then hiss the air out, so as to create some resistance.
One of my favorite quotes of the day: “Flatness is a pitch emergency. Someone call 9-1-1!”
Student #3: Varese Density 21.5
With this student he worked mostly on getting a “dense” sound. They worked on the middle “D” for much of the time, getting that dense sound on that note. Then as she tried different notes, he would keep bringing her back to the “D” as a reminder. In order to find the center of the note and the density, you have to try everything. “Where you put the flute on your chin matters.” He had her moving her embouchure all around, moving the flute on her chin, moving her chin position, changing as many different things as possible. The tone started to get worse, and then all of the sudden, she got that dense sound. He said not to get discouraged, that you’ll have to make a bunch of bad sounds before you get the one good one that you are going for. Work on the notes without vibrato first, and then work the vibrato in, but keep the vibrato in the note, not above it. “Don’t disturb the surface of the note” with the vibrato.
Throughout the piece, don’t go for mystery, go for density. Also, play the slurs with a sharp edge, not loose. Go right from one note to the next; don’t let one note slide up to the next.
Student #4: Poulenc Sonata, 1st movement
The marking for this movement is “Allegro malincolico”, which can roughly mean “happy-somewhat sad.” It’s sad first, being minor and descending, and then it changes over to being happy. This continues throughout the whole movement.
Another choice quote: “You are an emotional juicer; you have to juice out the emotions.” He said that in France they are better at being happy and then quickly changing to being sad. “I’ll have a coffee while I’m shopping [smile], oh they don’t have my size [frown].” (This probably made more sense that day…) The character changes in the movement are very sudden, but you can’t let that affect the tempo. In the plus vite section, use a little more “alive” vibrato, keeping a “simple” sound.
Another note on trills:
C# to D# in first octave use 2nd trill key
C# to D# in second octave use both 1st and 2nd trill keys
At the very end of this movement (B-G#-B-G♮), it’s “hap-py-sa-ad,” kind of summarizing the whole piece. Make sure you show this.