Baton down the hatches

OK, Rehearsal Techniques.

William Buchman hit one nail right on the head when he decried the kind of rehearsal technique where the conductor stops to make a correction right away. I was in a rehearsal when the conductor managed to stop the orchestra over 100 times in just the first 90 minutes of the rehearsal. I guess he was trying to impress us with his ear, or his ability to hear mistakes. But what happened was we got bored, we made further mistakes, he stopped more, it was ugly! The only reason I wasn’t bored was that I was busy counting the number of times he stopped.

In the same vein, I had a conductor who managed frequently to stop the orchestra two or three bars before the end of the movement, to correct something. Couldn’t he have gone to the end and picked up the problem afterward?

I like conductors who will read to the end, and then rehearse the ending first. That way we know we’ll be great when we get to the end of the movement. Rehearsing from the end of the piece is often better, I think, than from the front — at least you don’t over-rehearse the beginning to the detriment of the ending.

The rehearsals are the time that the conductor has to impart his/her view of what we are to accomplish. It’s OK to spend time on the details. It’s not OK to learn the piece in front of us. Sure, minds can change and details evolve; but it’s not a good idea to stand in front of a group of pros and use that time to figure out what the piece is about.

An effective conductor also has to be able to manage time, to look into the future (when planning rehearsals) and figure out how much time to devote to any given piece. It doesn’t do any good to spend 45 minutes on a simple overture when there’s a difficult symphony coming up.

I have been in rehearsals when the conductor spent so much time on other pieces s/he managed not to give the soloist enough time to get through the solo. It’s our job, the conductor’s and the orchestra’s, to help the soloist feel comfortable. How can that happen if we can’t even finish that piece?