Albie Cabrera ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Matthew Gillett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>I would perhaps suggest that Karajan and the like would be much the same
>>- concentrating on the phrasing and flow of the music rather than the
>>individual beats of every bar.
>
>I never reached that level in orchestral playing, so I haven't experienced
>that type of advanced conducting...  however, I really must emphasize
>again...  on the Karajan "music videos", his gestures really look *off*
>compared to what the orchestra was playing...  or vice versa...
>whatever...  it actually looked *contradictory* to me.

I think even at fairly non-advanced levels conductors do more than simply
beat time and sometimes not even that.  A little while back I was witness
to a conversation between a very experienced conductor (who, e.g., worked
with Howard Hanson at the Eastman Institute 40 years ago) and his much
younger colleague - the music director and associate md of our local
community orchestra, in fact.  He had just conducted a very fine Beethoven
8 and was pointing out to her that it is easy to "overconduct", giving as
his example the "metronome" 2nd movement, in which, he said, it is simply
not necessary to conduct every beat.

As far as the "great conductors" are concerned, I am currently involved in
helping a friend who played in, among other bands, the 1950s Philharmonia,
write his reminiscences.  When it's published you'll hear about it, never
fear...:-)

Just to whet your appetites and get back roughly on topic:  Bob was present
on the famous occasion when a violinist (and former Spitfire pilot) in the
Philharmonia finally blew his cool with Karajan during a rehearsal, stood
and up with the words "I spent six years of my life shooting people like
you out of the sky, I'm not going to put up with this now" walked out of
the room.  HvK apparently vowed (although contractually he couldn't quite
manage) to make all his recordings in Berlin in future...

Before I knew Bob very well, I had started to tell him this anecdote in
conversation, only for him to say "Oh yes, I was there".  He is wonderful,
a totally modest man, who can nevertheless top anything you say, without
even meaning to.

Last season, for instance, he filled in with said community orchestra
(having known the conductor for over 35 years) at a concert which finished
with Walton's Crown Imperial.  As we were chatting after the concert,
knowing that the piece was first performed at the 1937 Coronation of George
VI, I said (a little cheekily), "Now, Bob, not even you are old enough to
have played in the premiere of that!"

"No," he replied.  Then, after a short pause, "I did know Walton quite
well, of course..."

For this particular orchestral musician, who is still playing superbly
at 81, the greatest orchestral conductor of them all (and he played under
just about everyone you can think of, with the exception of Toscanini) was
Victor de Sabata, who not only knew the scores inside out (pointing out
an error in the LPO's library copy of, IIRC, Berlioz's Carnaval Romain
overture that nobody knew about) but could apparently advise the player
of any instrument *exactly* how to get the effect he wanted.

VdS was such a perfectionist that he once tried to get the orchestra to
stay behind after a *performance* of Verdi's Requiem to rehearse the bits
he hadn't been happy with.  There were, oddly enough, no takers.

deryk barker
([log in to unmask], http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~dbarker)