My contacts with the United States

Introduction: Urgent call...

"Please call collect immediately. Sincerely Dean Willfred C. Bain. Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana, USA"

This is the cable I received on May 10, 1970, and it is the beginning of an extraordinary story.

A few weeks previous to that date, I had asked Professor Philip Farkas if he would accept me as his pupil at the Bloomington School of Music during summer vacations. Many years before I had already adopted his book "The Art of French Horn Playing" as the indispensable base of daily practising and of teaching my pupils. Now it was my great wish to attend his classes personally. Farkas' answer was kind and positive, but he begged me to send a tape recording, since before enrolment test playing — even "canned" — was imperative. This seemed to me a little exaggerated in face of the fact that I was solo horn of the Munich Philharmonic, but I did as I was asked and sent Prof. Farkas a tape recording of Jos. Haydn's 1st horn concerto which I had made the year before with the Bamberg Symphony for the Bavarian Radio Munich.

Whereupon the cable arrived, telling me to call immediately. I really could see no reason for such an urgent call and supposed some misunderstanding. However, I called. Dean Bain answered the phone with the deep sonorous voice of the American manager. After a few introductory words, he passed the receiver on to an interpreter, who, in fluent German, spoke the one sentence that showed straight away that I was connected with the country of unlimited possibilities: "Herr Höltzel", the voice said, "Dean Bain wants me to tell you that he and Mr. Farkas have listened to your tape recording and they both agree that you should come to Indiana University not as a summer student, but as a guest teacher, starting next September. When, do you think, can you let us have your definite decision on the subject?"

I was so taken aback by this idea that I could not even show joyful surprise but just stammered something about having been with the Munich Philharmonic for only a few months and that they surely would not be prepared to grant me a year's leave. Besides, I was a teacher at the Salzburg Mozarteum and felt sure that its director would never let me go. However, I finally promised to do my very best to arrange things, the offer being very tempting indeed; and I was granted a time-limit of 24 hours.