Baton down the hatches
Who comes up with these wonderful questions anyway? (That’s known as “sock-puppeting” when it’s done by bloggers, by the way – at least when it’s done anonymously.)
My pet peeves:
Moving too much. When conducting an orchestra, less is more. Then, when the conductor actually does more, it means something. The orchestra might even notice. (We did a kiddie concert the other day on music describing various means of locomotion. Like all kiddie concerts, it opened with “William Tell.” Afterwards I heard some colleagues complain that the conductor was pantomiming riding a horse for the audience. I honestly hadn’t noticed.)
Baton as fashion accessory. A conductor without a baton should look as helpless as an oboist without a reed. If it’s not fulfilling a function, then its value is solely as a phallic symbol. And, if it is fulfilling a function, don’t put it down when the tempo marking is Adagio. If you think that Allegro is crisp and Adagio is mushy, you’re in the wrong business.
Bilateral symmetry. If both arms are always doing the same thing, then one of them should be left at home. Gestures should mean something.
On playing behind (or beating ahead)
Orchestras always play behind the beat compared to, say, choruses. My own theory is that it’s an attempt to play with one’s colleagues; or, to put it another way, to play with what one hears rather than with what sees. I find it gets worse in halls in which it’s hard to hear side-to-side and when conductors don’t seem to have a strong conviction about when the orchestra is going to come in after they beat. For me, it’s less bothersome than conductors who follow the orchestra (although obviously conductors should react to what the orchestra is doing), especially when accompanying.
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