About the flute and life
In this slim volume, Peter Lukas Graf shares memories and gives advice from his career as a flautist and conductor.
He did not want to write a biography. However, Peter Lukas Graf was prepared to exchange questions and answers with the Japanese publisher Kan Saito during each of the 52 weeks of the year - in the form of an e-mail correspondence. The result is a clearly structured volume on 52 topics related to his instrument. The relaxed and personal commentary style proves its worth both in the advice from the wealth of experience of the flutist, who has been active for over seventy years, and in the comments on conducting, the counter-subject which, as he somewhat bashfully notes, was able to boost his self-confidence. But for him, playing and conducting were "virtually opposing professions ... playing the flute is therefore no help for conducting".
Personal encounters and unexpected events are conveyed in the most concise formulation - without larmoyance, but often spiced with light self-irony - and offer an insight into sensitivities that could influence the course of solo performances. The anecdotal and the technical are combined in a sympathetic way.
Peter Lukas Graf: Backstage - About music, the flute and life, 72 p., € 12.50, Schott, Mainz 2020, ISBN 978-3-7957-2155-8
