Rude conductors

[richardfinegold]

Thanks! I would love to but I'm trying hard to forget it all and concentrate on the countryside, walking the dog, nature, good food and beer/wine. I also find that people generally on the forum don't like me talking about my disreputable past, as it's really quite unsavoury. I'm such a cantankerous old geezer who has said a few naughty things about conductors and criticised critics, as well as making sweeping statements about both young and old(er) musicians. Anyway, FF would not like it as it creates unrest and much gnashing of teeth (I haven't any left so I can't gnash) - and intellectuals from "up North" could get their knickers in a twist if I mention recording quality vis a vi Hi and Low Fi equipment.



better stop I think! ANOTHER 1,000 hale maries ...

I think you greatly misunderstand how much your experiences are appreciated. There are many participants in this forum. Interesting people with strong opinions are bound to occassionally annoy some of them. The rest of us shrug it off.
Any time you want to have a discussion about hi fi, I'm willing.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

(surely English must be the only European language where you can get away with using 'little' preceded by the adjective 'great' and for it still to make perfect sense.....)

Ours is indeed a strange language. Where else does the the opposite mean the same (flammable/inflammable) and the same mean the opposite (resign/re-sign)?

[Ariosto]

I think you greatly misunderstand how much your experiences are appreciated. There are many participants in this forum. Interesting people with strong opinions are bound to occassionally annoy some of them. The rest of us shrug it off.
Any time you want to have a discussion about hi fi, I'm willing.

Thanks Richard - maybe I will start a new thread called "idiosyncratic experiences with Hi-Fi."

[vinteuil]

Ours is indeed a strange language. Where else does the the opposite mean the same (flammable/inflammable) and the same mean the opposite (resign/re-sign)?

... and how to explain to a non-English speaker that the word "quite" sometimes means "moderately" and yet sometimes means "extremely" -

"That's quite interesting." "That's quite good." "That's quite nice."

"That's quite extraordinary." "That's quite brilliant!" "That's quite wonderful."

... I think it's all quite difficult. Or perhaps I mean, I think it's quite demanding....

[rauschwerk]

Josef Krips was prone to lose his temper. I was once in the chorus for Mahler 2, rehearsing with him at the London Opera Centre. For some strange reason (probably to save the LPO management a sub-conductor's fee), he had the offstage band right behind him and they played as instructed - fff, sehr schmetternd (extremely loud and blaring). He quite lost his rag and yelled at them, "Why do you play so loud? Should it be FUN?!!" Not rudeness exactly, but you could say it was unreasonable.

[Hornspieler]

Arthur Fiedler was the rudest (and most incompetent) conductor that I ever played for. I wish that I had posessed the courage to tell him where he could stick his fire hose.

HS

[visualnickmos]

I gather Georg Solti had a bit of a reputation as being a bit of an ogre.....?

[Richard Tarleton]

OT, or perhaps not, at last night's WNO Orchestra's performance of Bruckner 8 at St David's Hall, as applause broke out Lothar Koenigs made every soloist and section take a bow before finally turning to acknowledge the applause himself with the whole orchestra...he seemed very pleased with them....

[Ferretfancy]

Arthur Fiedler was the rudest (and most incompetent) conductor that I ever played for. I wish that I had posessed the courage to tell him where he could stick his fire hose.

HS

Interesting that you have direct experience, I had heard that he was terrible. Funnily enough, having recently bought the RCA Living Stereo boxes, I now have some exciting Fiedler recordings to look forward to!
Of course, Fiedler and the Boston Pops sold massively in the days of 78s, when most households had a scruffy cabinet under the radiogram with items like the Can Can from Orpheus in the Underworld or the William Tell Overture-- happy memories, but naturally we didn't have much choice back then!

[Ariosto]

I never unfortunately worked for Klemplerer as I was a bit young when he was around, but from a clip I saw on Youtube he could be a bit bad tempered. He was rehearsing the Philharmonia back in the sixties and he shouted at the first fiddles and banged his score down, because they weren't all doing his bowing which he had just given them. One from the back desks shouted back, "we aint got the bloody bowing in yet!" (Or words to that effect). It did the trick.

I did love the exchanges between a record producer (Grubb I think) and old Otto. The producer said over the talk-back "it's OK, we need not do that bit again as we have it fine on an earler take, and we can cut it in." Otto turned to his daughter in the stalls and said "hear that Lotte, ein swindle." (If the German is correct). They also had exchanges about tempos, with Otto asking sarcastically if it was slow enough.

All great stuff, and I've always been a great admirer of Klemplerer.

[visualnickmos]

.....I've always been a great admirer of Klemplerer.

Ich auch.

[Petrushka]

Another Klemperer story I heard in a TV interview.

During a Beethoven performance in the Royal Festival Hall, the leader of the New Philharmonia, Desmond Bradley, was gesticulating to Otto in an attempt to tell him that his trouser flies were undone. Klemperer took no notice but after the concert asked Bradley what the problem was. On being told, Klemperer said in a loud voice. "But what has that got to do with Beethoven?"

[Ferretfancy]

Another Klemperer story I heard in a TV interview.

During a Beethoven performance in the Royal Festival Hall, the leader of the New Philharmonia, Desmond Bradley, was gesticulating to Otto in an attempt to tell him that his trouser flies were undone. Klemperer took no notice but after the concert asked Bradley what the problem was. On being told, Klemperer said in a loud voice. "But what has that got to do with Beethoven?"

That's reminiscent of the elderly Churchill remarking on being told his flies were undone, "Dead birds don't fall out of nests."

[Pabmusic]

Ours is indeed a strange language. Where else does the the opposite mean the same (flammable/inflammable) and the same mean the opposite (resign/re-sign)?

Much of the strangeness comes from the fact that it's a hybrid language with words freely imported from all over. So we can begin a negative word with in-, de- or dis- (Latinate), a- (Greek) or un- (Germanic) and yet find that Latin also uses in- as an intensifier (inflame, for instance). The 'inflammable' problem arose on America in the 1880s when fire insurance companies refused to sanction the word's use on notices (too many people thought it meant 'cannot burn' - lots of people in the US then whose first language wasn't English). It was completely abandoned in the US
in the 1920s after fire brigades gave advice. 'Inflammable' in still usual in Canada and Australia as well as the UK, though 'flammable' is also common.