As an amateur listener of classical music and occasional philharmonic-goer, I’ve always wondered two things…
what difference does it make who is conducting the orchestra? i’ve seen guys up on the podium that barely move the entire night, and others that are throwing baton after baton to the side because their movements are so “expressive.”
what difference does it make who the soloist is? certain people seem to get celebrity status, but i really can’t tell the difference between Yo Yo and Toto the Dog.
Re: no 2. Everything! Far more than I can explain. Apply the same principle to ANYTHING you’re interested (field of work, hobby, etc). To someone not in the know, one car looks much like another, one heart-surgeon is much like another, one baseball player is much like another. To someone who knows (or has some knowledge of) the subject in question, true genius stands out a mile.
The real fun begins when the soloist and the conductor have public ‘discussions’ over tempi, dynamics and other nuances during rehearsals. Been there (watching from the orchestra)…:rolleyes:
How many [name] music school students does it take to change a light bulb?
Two: Once to change the light bulb and the other to challenge his/her interpretation.
The conductor matters a great deal before performance. By the time of the performance the orchestra (or performing group) should have the piece down so they won’t need him/her. The conductor establishes tempo, dynamics, and all sorts of things. The conductor also interprets the music’s expressiveness and how the group will enact that. There are many different conducting styles. Typically they mark the tempo (sometimes the rhythm too), dynamics, and other forms of expressiveness. Sometimes they add effects as the piece calls for them. I had the pleasure of working with a conductor who after she had us all performing the music to her liking rhythmically she stopped counting (the hand patterns) and conducted solely by the expressions on her face for the dynamics and the expressiveness of the given piece. It was remarkably effective.
Now to the soloist. The soloist makes a great difference to a piece of music. Let’s do a comparison to paintings by the masters. We all know that Michelangelo could paint a wonderfully realistic picture of a person that was aesthetically pleasing but in some instances what is looked for is a wonderfully expressive piece that isn’t necessarily realistic such as Munch’s “Scream” or even something more abstract like Picasso’s “The Guitarist.” They all have talent somewhere but oftentimes individual talent has a different representation between individuals. Saying a soloist is a soloist is like saying Munch is Michelangelo.
Bastard! You always beat me to the music questions!
I was gonna make a sports analogy…does it make a difference whether the baseball is being pitched by David Wells or Toto the Dog?
Why not do an acid test: buy two recordings of the same Bach solo piece, The Goldberg Variations is a good one for comparison purposes…one by Roslyn Tureck, say, and one by Glenn Gould. (Make sure they’re both being played on a modern piano, not a harpsichord or an organ or whatever) They certainly sound different, don’t they?
Good questions. I am still doing time as a professional orchestra player in the US, and I also do my share of conducting, so I have some opinions:
It is true that a conductor’s value is not visually obvious. I have worked with brilliant conductors who hardly move at all and still manage to inspire great performances. How do they do it? It’s in the decisions they make about phrasing, articulations, dynamics, dramatic timing, etc. These decisions can be related to the orchestra through verbal description, but oftentimes, the most effective method is to show it in the face or the hands. A skilled orchestra will recognize these sometimes-subtle-sometimes-overt gestures and expressions and realize the conductor’s interpretation.
I have also worked with horrible conductors who seem as if they have spent hours in front of a mirror choreographing their moves while listening to a recording. Needless to say, these gestures are not driven by personal interpretation, and they come across to the players as hollow and meaningless. Thus, if you like the interpretation chances are you like the conductor. If the audience judges a conductor based on his or her podium antics in performance it might be like looking at a tire and determining that it must be a good tire because it’s a white wall. The proof is in the way it drives, not the way it looks.
As for the question about soloists. The previous answers are right on the money. Try this experiment: Get three recordings of a standard concerto (say, for example, Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto “the Emperor”) by different soloists. Listen to each back-to-back and see if there is a difference. Better yet, go to a live performance of a concerto, then compare it to the recorded versions. I think you’ll find a difference. Pick your favorite one. That’s the soloist you’ll want to see play that concerto live (if, of course they are still alive…) Now go here it live and support a musician!
Ya’ll have fun now.
My thing is martial arts. And it is amazing the subtleties a truly accomplished practitioner can exhibit. But they may be invisible to someone inexperienced.
One difficulty is, if I know nothing about playing an instrument (or fighting) someone with, say decent talent and 10 years experience may be so much better than I can comprehend, that I may have difficulty appreciating how much better the truly gifted practitioner is.
I can still remember when I asked this of my college roomate 20 years ago. We each happened to have copies of Mozart’s 40th, one by Solti and the CSO, and the other by Karajan and the Berlin Phil. Barely seemed like the same piece. BUT, I’m not so sure that I would have appreciated the differences had I not intentionally listened to them one after the other for purposes of comparison. I am often amazed reading classical music reviews, at the amount of preparation and attentativeness it must take to discern what seem to me as such subtle points.
This is not to take anything away from the musicians or conductors. I am merely suggesting that a great portion of what makes them incredibly gifted may be beyond the comprehension of the general public. Perhaps other talents, painting, or athletics, for example, may better lend themselves to comparison by the unschooled.
Sorry is this disjointed message fails to do justice to its well written predecessors.