Recommended Reading
The Mystery of Conducting by Derek Holland
There can be few music lovers who are not fascinated by the art of the conductor. How many music lovers I wonder have not conducted a CD from the privacy of their armchair too at some time of another!
Learning and for that matter teaching the art of conducting is different in so many ways from learning a musical instrument. There are those who would even question if conducting can even be taught. The late Sidonie Goosens whose father, grandfather and brother were all eminent conductors thought not. According to her in a 1993 interview conductors were born and you were either one or you were not!
There are however clearly aspects of conducting that can be taught. It is relatively easy to teach a student to beat two, three, four or the more complex measures in a bar. A fluent stick technique can be practised in front of the mirror with or without a CD. Don't forget however that the CD is actually conducting you , not the other way around and whatever mistakes you make, it will carry on! If you are interested in learning this aspect of conducting there can be no finer book than that written by the great British conductor Sir Adrian Boult (1889 - 1993) many decades ago called "The Point of the Stick, a handbook on the technique of conducting". I had the privilege of hearing Boult conduct on a number of occasions in the concert hall. His technique was unrivalled even in his eighties. One sensed that even if he were filmed conducting without the Music his technique was so expressive and subtle that it would have been possible to tell what he was conducting. The same was said about his mentor, Arthur Nikisch with whom he studied in Leipzig and who can be briefly observed on an ancient fragment of silent film. Watching conductors can indeed be very helpful. I still love sitting behind the orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, a hall in which I have heard and seen Boult, Bohm, Celibidache, Jochum, Muti Giulini, Dorati, Previn, Haitink, Bernstein, Karajan and many others.
Another aspect of conducting that can be taught is score reading. My advice here would be to obtain scores of works for which you feel a special sympathy or interest and follow them with a CD working out the structure of a piece and where the important melodic lines are to be found and how they are placed in the accompanying textures.
The student of conducting does face one major problem however, when compared to an instrumentalist. An instrumentalist has their instrument to practise at all times and can join a group of performers at an appropriate level to gain experience from an early stage. A conductor can buy a baton but that's about it. Even amateur groups will generally look for some experience in a prospective conductor and rarely advertise for a conductor, most positions going on recommendation or word of mouth. Few are in a position to hire a group to practice on! It is possible with perseverance and a few willing friends or fortunate contacts to form a group of singers or instrumentalists to conduct, but it isn't easy and has financial implications even at a modest level. There are ways in, however. Brass Bands do advertise for conductors in the British Bandsman and whilst they will look at qualifications and education the ultimate test in my experience has always been which person conducts the band best not only technically but who has the personality to relate well to the players and bring the best out in them. If you are a member of a group there is no harm in asking if you can take the stick for part of a rehearsal. An accompanist might get the opportunity to deputise on occasion and there is always the possibility of getting a group together for say a Christmas event at church! In 1909, a 14 year old Malcolm Sargent got pushed forward at his local G and S society when the conductor was delayed. I had my first chance at the age of 18 at a local charity concert because there was simply no one else available!
Having allowed myself to get sidetracked for a while, let me return to the title of my article. There are clearly then aspects of conducting that can be taught, but so much more is intangible and has never as far as I can see been explained if indeed it ever could be. I have already talked about the technical aspects of conducting, but if all that there was to it was accurately reproducing what was on the page, musicians would have been replaced by machines long ago. Faithfulness to the score is important but it is not simply all there in black and white. An instance I often quote here concerns an early overture by Grieg, ‘In Autumn'. There are some perfectly decent recordings around that play what Grieg wrote but listen to the same piece under Sir Thomas Beecham. What is other hands sounds like a good second rate piece of music glows here with a magical atmosphere and becomes an absolute gem. It is not simply all there in the notes alone. As Sir Malcolm Sargent once pointed out, before conducting the first bar of Messiah, the conductor has to make two decisions since the only performance direction is "grave". The metronome was not invented for about another 80 years and there is no dynamic marking. Later composers were more precise, but even there they differ from what they wrote in their own recordings time and time again. Boult once said that Elgar never conducted any of his works the same way twice. We are on to that mysterious area called "interpretation": I would advise any student of conducting to listen to many different versions of favourite pieces and not to try to copy bits of one or another but just to absorb the work of generations of experience. We are now fortunate to have recordings dating back almost to the turn of the last century, many conducted by the composers themselves or those who knew them and their world.
Critics are forever debating who is and isn't a good, great or even poor conductor. Andre Previn, unquestionably a great musician, remarked recently about how a conductor can be a fraud more easily than an orchestral player. If a player is not of the highest quality it is obvious to anyone who hears them. On the other hand a poor conductor can stand in front of a passable performance because the players simply carry them! Some eminent names have gone in and out of fashion (how many Karajan denigrators used to queue up for tickets to hear the great man live!). How can this be quantified? How can a great performance be identified especially as critics differ widely in their opinions since this is such a subjective area?
Some conductors clearly have a superb stick technique. I have already spoken about Sir Adrian whom I admire above almost all others and indeed to his pupil, the late great Vernon Handley. These conductors were more than superb technicians however. Their performances were full of subtle beauty, excitement, passion and musical understanding. They communicated the vision of the composers whom they served to the players and the audience producing great performances time and time again. On the other hand I have watched conductors with immaculate technique produce performances which were dull and lifeless. On the other hand there were others such as the late great Otto Klemperer whose technique was severely limited due to physical difficulty. Yet what performances he gave! Also I remember Rudolf Schwarz (1905 - 1994) whose movements were very awkward as the result of Nazi brutality sustained in a concentration camp. His technique had been described as elegant before the war but he was later described to me by a former member of the Philharmonia as looking like a man struggling to get out of a sack, but that he was a very fine musician. He was getting the most marvellous performances from orchestras until he was almost 80. How is it that some superb technicians get accurate but lifeless performances whilst those such as Schwarz and Klemperer got great performances in spite of awkward technique ? Somehow or other all great musicians can communicate their understanding and insight into a composer's mind but how they do it can simply not be explained. Explanations have been attempted such as use of eye contact, a feeling that they exude a particular kind of energy and simply strength of personality. I would be interested to hear any exchange of views on this one!
