Dean Voegtlen
was the most inspiring student I have ever had. Shortly before he died
in January of 2005, I told him that although I had tried to teach him how
to play the clarinet, in fact he had taught me more about the art of living.
When
Dean Voegtlen started studying with me in 2000, he had a very specific goal:
performing and recording the Brahms Clarinet Quintet for his 50th wedding
anniversary that year. At the age of 78 he had far more energy than I did,
and played the clarinet much like the teenage boy he had been when his achievement
with the instrument first reached its peak. In addition, he wanted to bring
his playing back to a certain level and reward himself by acquiring new Buffet
clarinets. I decided to teach him as if he were still a teenage boy, working
on what I considered the important features that needed pruning and trying
to get him to stop focusing on what he considered his "finger" problems. Because
his casual playing schedule had left him unnaccustomed to playing longer works,
I was sceptical that the quintet could be ready so soon, and in fact he came
to agree with me. He finally achieved his goal in 2004, performing and recording
the work with professional players, the Russian Quartet. In the intervening
time, he worked on many other projects and repertoire, taking cues from me
about getting back to a smoother legato and building his breath and embouchure
control through specific exercises I gave him, and also through challenging
himself to play longer pieces.The achievement he made was dazzling.
Dean
started out as a clarinetist by taking lessons from woodwind coach and Juilliard
bassonist Angel del Busco, winning a national competition for high school
students playing the Weber concertino, and getting accepted into college on
a music scholarship--something he chose not to pursue. A War and a detour
of plans led him into engineering. In mid-life he studied for a short time
with Kalman Bloch, but later the clarinet had much competition from Dean's
other serious passions--tennis, skiing, hiking, gardening, travel, family,
concert attendance, service to his church community in Santa Monica and his
neighbors in Inglewood, and many other passions that reflected his incredible
zest for life. All of these activities he steadfastly pursued simultaneously
at the highest level of excellence possible, and continued resolutely and
cheerfully through the complications that followed: his diagnosis of
bladder cancer, surgery, a successful lawsuit against his HMO, chemotherapy
and alternative treatments. In all this time, I never heard Dean complain
about his health. How he "felt" was not a topic for conversation. Whatever
truths he may have known about his condition, he always presented the most
optomistic picture to his friends. Not long after the initial bladder reconstruction,
he went back for another surgery, to repair a torn cartilage in his shoulder
so he could keep his tennis serve. His general health was so good that he
made rapid recoveries from both surgeries and was able to play clarinet within
hours of cheomotherapy treatments. The pixie-like smile and wry sense of mirth
stayed intact until his final illness. The last time I saw Dean, when he had
come home to hospice care, he dressed in a suit to listen to me play and walked
to the door to let me in. I had expected to find him in bed, and was startled
to find myself playing a concert for a serious critic. In fact, the
next day his strength began to fail him. I managed to exchange a few words
with him by phone the day before he died, and put Ariadne on the phone with
him to sing him Handel's touching love song, Vadoro pupille.
Never
will I forget the lesson I learned from this dear man, to live life to the
fullest every day, with a big smile and a loving heart.
Listen to an mp3 of Dean Playing Brahms
