Klarinet Archive - Posting 000330.txt from 2000/03

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] Conductors (was, Dvorak Serenade)
Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 16:37:13 -0500

Just to put the other side of this:

I count myself very lucky that I played in a good Youth Orchestra when I
was young. It was perhaps *the* most important musical experience of my
life.

The conductors that worked with our orchestra showed me a way of
thinking about the music that I feel had a great influence on me when
I played chamber music, because it affected how I used my voice in our
collective decision of how to make chamber music work. They taught me
what 'working' was, in the context of ensemble playing.

It's common to say that orchestral players benefit greatly from playing
chamber music. But it's very often the other way around, if the
conductor is sufficiently good. It is from such a conductor that we may
learn how to be sensitive to the demands of the music that lie beyond
what is obvious when we look at our individual parts. And it is
precisely this sensitivity that makes great chamber music playing
possible.

The habit of playing in a way that contributes to making the whole piece
speak, rather than just in a way that makes our *own* part 'tell', is
one that is best learnt early, and may even be impossible to learn too
late.

Of course, when a conductor works, not with young players, but with a
largish group of professionals, his job is a little different.

But he may still (and here, 'he' includes the possibility that he is a
'she') have to point out failures of the individual players to
appreciate a lack of balance, blend or consistency. With better
players, such things mostly adjust themselves; but sometimes even the
very best professionals are working in conditions that require the
judgement of someone outside the ensemble.

I'd say, though, that a much more important part of the professional
conductor's job is to establish a consistency of style and
interpretation that will allow the players to contribute freely within
that framework, but without breaking it.

This is what the best conductors do. Their responsibility is to
recreate the sort of unanimity of conception that, in previous
eras, occurred naturally as a result of living within a style or
tradition. Our reactions to music today are much more heterogeneous.

Different conductors do this in different ways.

Harnoncourt explains what he's going to do, and why, for a considerable
time before he begins to work. Others say practically nothing, relying
on gesture alone. (Naturally, as players, we all have our opinions
about the *best* way to do it.)

It is of course possible to arrive at such a unified style, unconducted,
by a process of moving toward consensus -- as does the Orpheus Chamber
Orchestra. But even they have had to establish procedures that minimise
the sort of disagreement and lack of consistency that may arise when
everyone wants to have a say.

And I'd say that playing for different conductors, though occasionally
uncomfortable, may also give a group a wider range of expression:

> Every task involves constraint,
> Solve the thing without complaint;
> There are magic links and chains
> Forged to loose our rigid brains.
> Structures, strictures, though they bind
> Strangely liberate the mind.

Anyway, I think we do better if we appreciate what the best conductors
are trying to do -- then, sometimes, we may know better how to help
them, and us, attain it.

I also think we do better if we appreciate what conductors actually *do*
do. I have found that very good results, for a listener, are often
achieved by conductors who are not particularly highly regarded by many
of the players. (So, as a player, I sometimes mistrust my first
reactions.)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE www.gmn.com/artists/welcome.asp
tel/fax 01865 553339

... Dumb luck beats sound planning every time. Trust me.

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