James Roe: Albert's Very Life Was a Class in Style, and His Style Was in a Class by Itself

I met Albert Fuller at Juilliard in 1990 as a student in his graduate seminar, “Performance Problems in 18th-Century Music,” which he affectionately referred to as his Style Class. Anyone who spent any time with Albert knew that his very life was a class in style, and his style was in a class by itself.
His seminar didn’t follow the usual or expected linear format—usual, expected, and linear were never his abiding interests—rather it wended its way, equal parts Socratic and rhapsodic, through issues important to him: the power of self expression, the development of an individual voice, and the recognition of historical music’s vernacular power. This last point energized his exploration of period performance practice; the stripping away of layers of interpretive build-up on centuries-old music could reveal audacious power in the original.

James Roe (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

Visiting Albert one day, he handed me a nearly blank piece of paper and asked, “What do you think of my new final exam?”  On it was only one question: “What have you learned from this class during the year?” Recently, I found a file full of exam answers from 1998. Reading them, I was struck at the intimacy of the responses and the touching picture they painted of Albert as a teacher. Here are three excerpts:

You didn’t once say, “You must agree with this interpretation,” you said, “this moved me, does it move you?” In the past, I would pick up a new piece and look for the hardest lick, now I think, “Why did the composer write this? And what does it mean?”  You got me to confront getting on stage and saying something outrageous, something dark, something much more wild than the audience expects. This class made me want to stop being a student and start being an artist.

I think this class should be required for all Juilliard students. Everyone knows about music history and theory, but so few musicians know about themselves.

I grew up in Communist China and was taught early on to think like everyone else and to play the violin like everyone else. But you asked me to become the artist of my own life and to listen to my own heart. When I walked out of Juilliard after your class, I felt the sun shining on my face for the first time in my life.

Over the next months and years, while considering what you learned from Albert’s class and from his style, don’t give much heed to self-doubt, do not censor yourself. Remember, fantasy precedes fact, and your most precious possession is your own creativity.

James Roe (M.M. ’92, oboe)
Artistic Director, The Helicon Foundation