Baton down the hatches
My experience is that most conductors do not create pieces of large musical architecture. Even competent ones work a lot on details but forget about developing an overall shape to a movement or work. A lot of conductors have trouble letting go; trust the musician(s)to be able to interpret their parts/solos without being spoon fed. Many do not know how to deal with intonation problems; they either ignore them or simply point up and down, which takes away an opportunity to help the musicians’ ears evolve by having them tune to a bass tonic. As has been said many times, few conductors let their stick, eyes and facial expressions do the talking as opposed to constantly stopping and talking.
Musicians could make their conductors(and fellow musicians!)happier if they:
1)came with their parts prepared so the focus could be on making music;
2)came on time;
3)did less talking in rehearsal;
4)concentrated for the whole rehearsal/performance;
5)were more flexible/adaptable – sometimes music doesn’t arrive on time or soloists get sick so repertoire gets changed at the last minute;
6)also had a sense of humour and realized that conductors too make mistakes;
7)treat conductors how they themselves would want to be treated.
It’s been fun and interesting to see how the experiences showed a lot of commonality, despite working in different size orchestras in different countries, over the past few decades. Cheers.
No comments yet.
Add your comment