Klarinet Archive - Posting 000173.txt from 2004/07

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] The conductor as a tyrant
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 15:51:45 -0400

With respect to Revelli, I am very much out of my depth, never
having played under the man or even met him. But the rumors that
reached me allowed me to conclude that he was a force to be
reckoned with.

With respect to the comments made by David McClure to Howard
about the pedagogical value of sarcasm as a teaching tool, this
seems to have been the most reported on matter concerning
Revelli, but since I was not there I cannot judge if the matter
is true or to what degree his sarcasm operated.

But let me add this perspective. Whenever Hollywood or
television makes a picture that includes a conductor in some
prominent position (particularly Law & Order, which has used
conductors as their bad guys in several episodes), that
conductor's character is invariably made to be sarcastic,
unpleasant, and difficult. That's the entertainment perspective
of conductors. And I cannot remember how many times I would play
with a conductor, only to be asked how it was that "he beat the
group into shape."

It is almost as if the amateurs of the world see the symphony
orchestra milieu as one where the conductor is a vicious tyrant
and the players incompetent amateurs who would be unable to play
anything if they did receive the whip strokes of the intellectual
giant of the conductor. He is thought to inspire us with his
presumed shabby behavior. As pros, most of us realize that many
conductors are superior musicians, well-trained, effective, and
others are poor shnooks who would be better of doing something
else in life. Some are good, some are bad. But the snotty ones
don't last no matter what Hollywood says.

What I am wondering is if the band and orchestral conductors of
America in the 1930s through the 1970s were infleunced by the
Hollywood picture of the conductor as tyrant and felt that they
had to emulate that sort of behavior to be seen as a real
conductor.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org