French horn player Barry Tuckwell, who passed away last week at the age of 88,  had a term for the allure of the conductor’s podium. He called it “right arm disease.”

From all reports, Tuckwell was an excellent conductor.  But it was as a horn player that he made his mark. Playing the instrument is “like driving a very fast car on an oily road. You have to anticipate the things that may go wrong,” Tuckwell said. But not many things did go wrong when he was playing the instrument.

My reference point for the difficulty of horn playing comes from my long-ago youth orchestra days, when we based our yearly program on the availability of passable horn players. If we had them, and only if we had them, would we play Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.

Still, many have fallen prey to “right arm disease.” And I can understand. I engage in a little right-arm waving in the car, air-conducting, of course. But don’t worry. My left hand is firmly on the wheel.

(Photo: Imgartists.com)