Return 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
