As part of an exchange programme between the Vienna Music Academy and the Moscow Conservatory, I was able to study in Vienna during the academic year 1966/67, attending the conducting classes of Hans Swarowsky and Karl Österreicher. I am particularly grateful to Hans Swarowsky for his practical suggestions on how to organize rehearsals, his profound knowledge, especially of Viennese classical music, and his methodology of clear analysis. He was mostly interested in correlations and structure, which we had to fathom with a clear head. Thus, his teaching was characterized by objectivity and honesty towards the score. He left everything concerning expression and feeling to his students, which in the end allowed them to retain their individuality. We did not leave his class as one model, but with all our differences.