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to Chapter 8
9
The
Orchestra Conductor: a Unique Phenomenon
The conductor’s authority,
control and power. Orchestra/Conductor
relationship changes over the past 60
years. Wagner, Stokowski, Beecham and
others. Schwarzkopf recalls singing for
Karajan. International questionnaire
produces surprising results.
The
orchestra conductor is a unique phenomenon.
He alone of those who have to direct
large forces has to control them from
instant to instant. Until quite recently
it was nearly always a ‘he’ as there
were very few women conductors. Now
there are an increasing number and a
few who are very good indeed. In considering
the orchestra conductor it is important
to appreciate that his/her instrument
is the orchestra. They need to have
the same degree of control over their
instrument that all fine musicians require
if they are to realise their musical
intentions. Every performance is an
act of re-creation and must have spontaneity,
an element of improvisation that will
provide the vitality and excitement
so essential if it is to be a unique
experience. No two performances can
ever be exactly the same. It is only
on recordings that we hear exactly the
same performance each time. But an orchestra
is far more complex than any other musical
instrument. It is made up of 75/100
musicians playing a variety of instruments
and in opera and choral works there
may be a chorus of as many as 250 or
more, as well as soloists. And each
of them is highly skilled, individualistic
and will have his or her own idea of
how the music should be played.
Once
audiences at concerts and those buying
recordings, CDs, videos or DVDs of orchestral
music have decided what piece of music
they want to listen to it is very often
who is conducting that is of most concern.
In fact it is not unusual that the choice
of what to buy is determined by who
is conducting. Who is conducting is
also of paramount concern to the orchestra.
During
an interview on Television in 1958,
before a concert at Lincoln’s Inn Fields
with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
Sir Thomas Beecham said ‘When you come
to face the orchestra signs are not
very much. Facial expression is immense
– the face and the eyes are everything
…but more than that there is a link
between an intelligent player in a fine
orchestra … now these people notice
my expression and also there is the
link between us by which what I am thinking,
with fierce concentration – everything
– is communicated to them – they know.’
He was then asked ‘What do you do?’
‘I let them play. That’s what all the
orchestral players say when asked what
does this man do – and the answer is,
he lets us play. He doesn’t stop us
every 5 bars; he doesn’t agitate us
every 10 bars with some idiotic movement.
I let them go on playing!’
His
conducting, like that of all the great
conductors, had little to do with beating
time. As he said he ‘did let the orchestra
play’. But his direction involved far
more than just his face and eyes, important
though they were. No! Beecham was also
the master of the art of gesture. He
had that mysterious gift of being able
to convey by his body language his most
subtle intentions, held, as he said,
‘with fierce concentration’. Musicians
loved to play for him because he shared
his delight and love of music with them.
There are very fine musicians who give
immense pleasure to audiences but who
do not love music as much as they love
playing their instrument or conducting.
If a
conductor is to have the absolute control
required that will give him and the
artists he is directing the freedom
and flexibility to create a great performance,
he must have authority. Everyone, whether
they are soloists, opera singers, chorus
singers, principal musicians in the
orchestra who have solo parts to play
and all the section players, must follow
his every move. Conductors, good or
bad, take that for granted. Whether
useless or great, by virtue of their
role as conductor they exert, for good
or ill, the same effect over everyone
involved in the performance: instant
response to their every move, moment
to moment. Very few people are born
with a natural authority as well as
the ability to allow others to have
freedom within that authority. These
attributes are essential in a great
conductor. For others it will take time
before they can acquire the necessary
confidence and humility. Many more never
succeed in this respect, even if they
have the necessary musical ability.
The
necessary gestures and body language
have nothing to do with ‘beating time’.
Conducting is a mystery. The essentials
cannot be taught. Each and every movement,
however slight, affects the orchestra,
and the chorus and soloists if they
are involved. It is this combination
of authority and allowing freedom, or
at least the impression of freedom,
that is the essential gift a conductor
requires.
Felix
Weingartner, an outstanding conductor
of his day, and successor to Gustav
Mahler with the Vienna Court Orchestra,
relates how Fürstenau, the second
flute in the Dresden orchestras, told
him ‘When Wagner conducted the players
had no sense of being led. Each believed
himself to be following freely his own
feeling, yet they all worked together
wonderfully. It was Wagner’s mighty
will that powerfully but unperceived
had overborne their single wills, so
that each thought himself free while
in reality he only followed the leader,
whose artistic force lived and worked
in him. Everything went so easily and
beautifully that it was the height of
enjoyment.’ Weingartner adds that as
he spoke of this experience Fürstenau’s
‘eyes gleamed with joyful enthusiasm’.
It is
wonderful experiences like that, all
too rare, that every orchestral musician
treasures. Wagner displayed the overwhelming
self-confidence that all the greatest
conductors have. They can embrace an
orchestra, chorus and soloists within
their musical concept while at the same
time interacting with and responding
to them, allowing everyone to make their
contribution to the performance. My
experience during the years I played
for Beecham was similar to that described
by Fürstenau. I remember
that time with the same joyful enthusiasm.
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Another
conductor with this ability was Leopold
Stokowski. He was one of the very few
conductors who could get the sound he
wanted from any orchestra within a very
short time, without any talking. By
some extraordinary magic he enabled
every orchestra he conducted to sound
very like the Philadelphia Orchestra
of which he had been the principal conductor
for many years. I experienced this remarkable
talent playing for him in three orchestras,
the Royal Philharmonic, the London Symphony
and the Philharmonia.
In order
to obtain the sonority he wanted, depending
on the concert hall or studio he was
performing in, he would change the way
the orchestra was seated. He was always
trying to find a way to get the richest,
most resonant sound from his orchestra.
Sometimes he would have the first violins
to his left and the seconds to his right,
at other times both sections to his
left; he would place the cellos and
violas so that the violas sat on his
right and the cellos in the middle;
instead of the basses being in a group
on one side or other of the orchestra
he would have them strung out along
the back of the orchestra. This was
one way in which he exercised his authority.
Of course some members of the orchestra
may be unhappy when their seating position
is altered and the aural environment
is changed.
Stokowski’s
authority was challenged when he asked
the woodwind section in the Philharmonia
to sit to his right where the cello
section is normally seated. The woodwind
section, composed of some very fine
players confidant in their own power,
refused. Even though Stokowski asked
again the following day and on a third
occasion really pleaded with them to
‘let us just try’ they still held out
against his wishes. This loss of authority
had a profound effect on him and for
a time he lost some of his confidence
and a certain amount of his charisma
with the Philharmonia. On another occasion
when I was playing with the London Symphony
Orchestra not long after this confrontation
I witnessed a very different response.
When he asked their excellent young
woodwind section to change position
with the cellos they immediately complied.
He was clearly much happier and I am
sure this played a part in his working
much more with the LSO from then onwards.
In addition
to his outstanding qualities as a conductor,
Stokowski was probably the first to
appreciate just what could be achieved
in the recording studio. In the early
recordings he made with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, when recording was still
in mono, he somehow managed to achieve
results that sound like stereo. This
was particularly the case with the wonderful
virtuoso recording he made of the Bach
Toccata and Fugue that he had
arranged for orchestra.
Though
Stokowski is nearly always referred
to as a showman, his platform manner
and conducting style was not at all
showy. When he came onto the platform
and when he took a bow at the end of
any item he was very restrained and
never ‘milked’ the applause as quite
a few artists do. His appearance in
Fantasia shaking hands with Mickey
Mouse and his relationship with Greta
Garbo attracted a lot of publicity and
his bogus foreign accent led to a good
deal of speculation about whether his
name was Stokes or Stokowski. His name
was Stokowski and he was born in London
and went to school in Marylebone – there
is a plaque on the wall of the school
just round the corner from where I lived
for many years. He then went to the
Royal College of Music, where he studied
the organ.
There
are a lot of stories about this colourful
character, as indeed there are about
quite a few conductors. The anecdotes
here come directly from the musicians
involved and are not, as so often these
tales are, apocryphal. Stokowski, who
conducted the LSO quite frequently,
had been rehearsing with them in the
Royal Festival Hall (RFH). At the end
of the morning rehearsal the taxi that
had been ordered to take him back to
a hotel failed to arrive, so one of
the musicians, the bass trombonist,
Tony Thorp, was asked if he would take
the conductor in his car. This trombone
player happened to be a renowned fantasist
who because he was for ever telling
everyone about his prowess as a medical
doctor was generally referred to ironically
as Dr Thorp. As he was driving over
Westminster Bridge and just passing
Big Ben, Stokowski turned to him and
said, ‘ What that big clock?’ Thorp
replied immediately, ‘I don’t know –
I’m a stranger here, too.’
When
my old friend Stuart Knussen, an outstanding
double bass player and father of the
composer Oliver Knussen, was principal
double bass and the chairman of the
LSO Board, Stokowski used to stay with
him in his nice house on the outskirts
of London. Stuart had driven Stokowski
home after the rehearsal that morning
in the RFH, they had had lunch and were
sitting resting when Stuart told Stokey,
as musicians tended to call him, that
he had devised a method of producing
the tone one achieves when using a mute,
but without the need for a mute. ‘Play
to me’ said the Maestro. Double
bass players have little opportunity
to display their solo talents and so
Stuart dashed off a couple of movements
of the Bottesini and Dragonetti concertos.
‘Very good! Now, I hear without mute
playing.’ Stuart plays and Stokowski
tells him ‘Good – very good.’
They
had something to eat and then returned
to the RFH for the evening rehearsal.
After they had been playing for about
20 minutes they came to a passage where
the basses were required to be muted.
After only a few bars Stokowski stops
the orchestra. ‘Principal bass – why
you play without mute? Is written for
mute- no?’ In some confusion Stuart
tries to explain that he had shown him
he didn’t need a mute and did not have
one with him. ‘No mute. Please leave
orchestra.’ And poor Stuart, principal
and chairman was obliged to leave the
platform. On the way back in the car,
after the rehearsal, Stuart asked Stokowski
‘Why did you humiliate me like that
in front of the whole orchestra? I had
played to you and you said, "That’s
very good."’ ‘Yes, my boy.’ replies
Stokey, ‘Today you learn lesson. Never
trust anyone.’
In a
lighter vein: it is reported that when
Ernest Fleischman, then manager of the
LSO, introduced Georg Solti to him.
‘May I introduce Maestro Solti?’
Stokowski gave a slight bow to Solti
and said ‘And what is a Maestro?’,
leaving both Solti and Fleischman discomforted
and at a loss for a reply. Something
very unusual for Solti, a master at
always having the last word..
The
authority and control conductors require
and their desire to have every thing just
as they are hearing it in their ‘mind’s
ear’ does sometimes lead them to be inconsiderate
to artists. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf was
not only a great soprano but also a favourite
of Herbert von Karajan. In an interview
she relates how she had to respond to
his unreasonable demands. She was singing
on the recording of Beethoven’s Missa
Solemnis in Vienna with Karajan and
the Philharmonia Orchestra. ‘I did a performance
of Don Giovanni with Karl Bohm
on the 10th, Così on the
12th and Falstaff on Sunday the
14th. Now, these alone would have been
quite sufficient for me, I think. But
in addition to that we were recording
the Missa Solemnis between the
12th and 15th. On the 13th we had a rehearsal
for Falstaff with Mr von Karajan
in the morning, when he had laughingly
said to me ‘You, my dear, of course need
not sing out because after all you have
to record in the afternoon of that Saturday
at 3 o’clock, so be silent.’ So that is
what I started out to be. But when, of
course, it came to me singing on the stage
and he downstairs in the pit, hardly had
a second passed when he put his left hand
to his left ear and he said, ‘I can’t
hear you. Please sing out. How shall I
put a balance if you don’t sing? Come
out! Sing out!’ – Well!’
It is
at rehearsals that the relationship
between conductor and orchestra is established.
Can he get what he wants by his conducting
gestures, or does he have to talk a
great deal, trying to explain what he
wants but fails to indicate? Is the
orchestra spending more time listening
to him than playing the music? Are they
becoming increasingly bored? Nothing
destroys a performer’s ability to act,
dance or play their instrument well
than just sitting not ‘doing’.
Some
conductors are much better at the rehearsals
than at the performance. For some reason
they become nervous or more inhibited
at the concert. A few of them are able
to achieve much better results in the
recording studio. On the other hand
there are one or two who are boring
at rehearsal doing nothing more than
constantly repeating the same passage
over and over again without giving any
reason why they are doing so, yet at
the concert they can be inspiring. With
a very good orchestra this can work.
Age
can be very important for a conductor.
Whereas instrumentalists can practise
for many hours a day, a conductor cannot.
His only opportunity to practise on
his instrument is at rehearsals and
concerts. Orchestras do not like being
practised on. They resent being told
what to do by someone who clearly knows
less than they do. Curiously, the very
best orchestras, with the best and most
experienced musicians tend to be the
most patient. They probably have sufficient
understanding and self-confidence to
deal with the incompetence and absence
of tact that sometimes goes with a lack
of experience in a young conductor.
If they recognise real talent, they
will tolerate it and perhaps the leader
and one or two of the senior principals
may have a quiet word with him.
There
are some conductors, now held in high
esteem by musicians and the public,
for whom I played many years ago when
they were young. At that time they had
not yet learned ‘people skills’ and
were still awkward in their gestures.
They often upset orchestras and were
sometimes heartily disliked. Of course
this resulted in the performances they
achieved being less good than perhaps
they deserved. Over the years, having
had the opportunity to practise at many
rehearsals, they have gained in confidence,
learned to respect the musicians they
depend on and found a way to make the
gestures necessary to produce the performance
they hear in their head. Now, 35/40
years later a few have developed into
outstanding artists.
Unfortunately,
there are quite a few conductors who
do not learn with age, just as many
instrumentalists and singers do not
improve however long they are in the
profession. But when a conductor continues
to make unreasonable demands on players
and remains unable to indicate his intentions
by his gestures, his own shortcomings
quite often cause him to be less than
agreeable to the orchestra as a whole
and sometimes unpleasant to individual
players. With an orchestra that may
have some weaknesses or, young, inexperienced
players, conductors can be quite ruthless
when pointing out faults. Too often
this further destroys an already poor
relationship, reduces confidence and
does nothing to improve the performance.
If a conductor of this kind does get
the opportunity to conduct a very good,
experienced orchestra the players will
extremely quickly recognise his shortcoming.
If he tries to ‘teach’ them how to play
their parts and does not ‘let them play’,
to quote Sir Thomas, they may find they
have a rather hard time. When the final
performance is unsatisfactory and unrewarding
everyone is unhappy and frustrated.
Those
fortunate enough to play in the major
orchestras suffer less because they
generally get the best conductors. But
now there are a lot more good orchestras
than good conductors. There are quite
a number of musicians who only rarely
experience the joy of taking part in
a really rewarding performance. For
them frustration and unhappiness can
turn to anger and bitterness. In the
mid-1980s Dr Ian James and a group of
doctors, some of who were amateur musicians,
established the Elmdon Trust, which
became the British Performing Arts Medicine
Trust (BPAMT). They were concerned at
the increasing prevalence of physical
and mental problems within the music
profession. There are a number of doctors
specialising in these problems and now
nearly all the full time orchestras
in Britain have a doctor available for
consultation. Another organisation,
the International Society for the Study
of Tension in Performance (ISSTIP) decided
that an international survey was required.
A questionnaire was planned and distributed
to orchestras in Britain and one or
two other countries in Europe.
In the
section of the questionnaire in which
players were invited to comment on what
caused them the most distress, by far
the most frequent response was relevant
to the problem of working with conductors
deemed to be less than satisfactory.
At that time I was Director of the National
Centre for Orchestral Studies and involved
with the investigation into the problems
besetting musicians. I was astonished
to see that when players expressed their
feelings about conductors even their
handwriting displayed real signs of
agitation. The importance of having
a good conductor and the harm caused
by a bad one was referred to by 57%
of those in the regional orchestras.
When I said that I did not share these
feelings I was told that I had been
fortunate to spend my life in the best
orchestras working mainly with the very
best conductors.
Is there
any other occupation or circumstance
where the person in charge has such
moment to moment control over a large
number of people? No one else, employer,
general in the army, even a dictator
has this power, and especially when
those to be commanded are highly skilled
and have themselves to be making decisions
all the time in the performance of their
own actions. In orchestras with a permanent
conductor or music director that person
will probably also have the power to
determine whether one remains in the
orchestra. The four London orchestras
have overcome this by becoming self-managed;
in most countries the musicians will
be protected, when necessary, by the
collective power of either their trade
union or an association to which they
belong. This was not so in the past
and a good many conductors were referred
to as tyrants. Changed attitudes to
authority have also played a large part
in curbing any tendency in that direction.
The
relationship between conductors and
orchestras has changed a great deal
since I joined the profession in 1942.
It is a very complex relationship and
difficult to appreciate for anyone who
has not had a good deal of experience
in a professional orchestra. Sometimes
those who write about the orchestra
and orchestral musicians do not realise
that the conductor/orchestra relationship
with a very experienced orchestra is
very different from that in a school,
college, amateur or semi-professional
orchestra. The majority of the members
of a major symphony orchestra will have
had far more experience of the repertoire
than even the oldest and most experienced
conductor because they will have played
whatever is to be rehearsed with many
conductors, good and bad. Marie Wilson,
who was one of the Leaders of the BBC
Symphony Orchestra for many years from
the early 1930s, put it very well in
an interview I recorded with her in
1987, when she was still playing in
the LPO. She had played with all the
great conductors from Toscanini, Wilhelm
Furtwängler to Karajan and Giulini.
She said ‘We should have conductors
who know so much more than we do. We
are at the top of our profession: we
should be looking up to somebody at
least better than us. Someone who can
inspire you.’
Since
I became a member of the London Philharmonic
Orchestra in 1942 the general standard
of technical skill on all instruments
has increased tremendously. Music that
even the two or three most outstanding
players would consider taxing is now
playable by everyone hoping to join
the profession. It is not too much to
say that virtuosity is relatively commonplace.
The ‘teaching’ element at rehearsal
that was required in all but the finest
orchestras is no longer needed. The
ability to obtain the right balance
of the various sections and inspiring
the orchestra are now what every orchestra
is looking for.
The
skill conductors now have has also developed
so that they can mostly deal with the
demands composers have made since the
beginning of the 20th century.
Many have employed far more complex
rhythms and changing time signatures.
Instead of writing whole movements in
4/4, 3/4 or 6/8, each bar may have a
different time signature, 3/8 then 5/4
followed by 2/4 and so on. Instead of
melodic lines, sections of the orchestra
and individual instruments have been
used in a way similar to how Seurat
and the other pointillist artists applied
spots of paint. The separate dots of
paint only make sense when one stands
away from the painting and one can see
what the artist intended, or, in the
case of music, hear what the composer
envisaged. Then again, to continue the
analogy with painting, some composers
became interested in creating ‘sound
experiences’, new and original aural
worlds in the way artists have used
pure colour or changed perspectives.
The
development of these new compositional
techniques, serial or twelve-tone music
and other compositional techniques drew
further and further away from the idea
of ‘tunes’ as normally considered.
For this music the musicians in
the orchestra now often only needed
someone just to indicate the beats accurately.
A conductor needing a good ‘stick technique’,
rather than the ability to inspire was
required, so that conductors attracted
to this new music were often those for
whom representing in sound, as accurately
as possible, the notes just as they
see them written in the score was most
important.
The
coming of the long-playing 33rpm record
in the early 1950s required conductors
to share their authority with the recording
producer and technicians to an extent
conductors in the past would not have
allowed. New techniques, in particular
the use of tape for recording that allowed
the extensive use of editing made this
possible. With the additional use of
many more microphones individual sections
could be now be balanced separately,
finally putting the control over the
finished recording in the hands of the
producer. This has affected conductors
and those playing in symphony orchestras
to a greater extent than those playing
in smaller groups of musicians. The
essential element in Jazz of improvisation
would be removed if the recordings were
edited. Recordings of pop music rely
to a considerable extent on the use
of the most sophisticated recording
techniques, some of which are now used
when recording symphony orchestras.
Other popular compositions are usually
not so long as the overtures, concertos
and symphonies that are the core repertoire
of the symphony orchestra and so they
can frequently be recorded without the
need for so much editing. In the case
of chamber music the ensemble will have
rehearsed the music extensively before
coming to the studio. Again, there will
be much less need for editing.
In spite
of all the changes that have taken place
over the years the conductor remains
the cross that orchestral musicians
still have to bear because too often
he does not know more than the players
do and is unable to inspire them. Yet,
it is only with a very good or great
conductor that it is possible for those
playing in an orchestra to fully express
themselves musically. That paradox remains
whatever else changes.
Famous
conductors bring in audiences and sell
recordings and so managements, recording
companies and virtually everyone they
have contact with respond to their every
wish. For several years whilst I was
Chairman of the Philharmonia Orchestra’s
Council of Management (its board of
Directors), as well as playing in the
orchestra, I had quite a lot to do with
conductors. I quickly learned that it
was necessary to think of the very good,
sometimes great artists we were privileged
to work with as extremely intelligent,
highly gifted and wayward children.
I also found that some of these wonderful
artists had become so used to their
slightest whim being complied with that
they had become prone to change their
mind from one moment to another. The
qualities that enabled them to get outstanding
results when they were on the podium
had led some of them to be rather autocratic
and dictatorial in their relationships
when they were not conducting. It was
necessary to be absolutely firm and
establish that ‘yes’ really meant ‘yes’
and ‘no’ meant ‘no’, today, tomorrow,
and next week, otherwise it was possible
to find oneself running around in circles
all the time. It was not always easy.
We wanted them to be happy, not only
with how the orchestra played, but to
feel that the orchestra respected them.
If they were outstanding, perhaps great
conductors, we wanted to work with them
again. They could make playing in the
orchestra a really enjoyable and enriching
experience.
Chapter
10
