>A friend of mine who was involved in one of his Dutch opera productions a >year or two ago said that the fact he had no stick technique at all worked >- in a perverse way - to the advantage of the music, because it forced the >singers and orchestral players to listen ultra-hard to one another simply >in order to survive, and made the results unusually involving! I wonder whether 'stick technique' is the right term at all. The few occassions at which I saw Gergiev conduct (a performance of Shostakovich's seventh in 2002, the recent premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's Johannes-cycle and the DVD of la Forza del Destino), I believe he never used a baton! The technique with which he moves his hands is probably musically unclear but fascinating nonetheless. How can one have his hands so relaxed, yet vibrate at such a tremendous speed without getting cramps? Jan