Conductors' ear-worms

[ardcarp]

I'm writing this having looked, on the BAL thread, at the vast list of recordings (so diligently researched by Alps, as always) of The Eroica. How does a conductor arrive at his definitive interpretation of this or any other towering classic? Should he or should he not have one or more revered versions in his mind? If so, should he try to emulate them or do the opposite? It may not be so difficult for the Hippsters, as they by definition are doing something a bit different...i.e. mainly playing everything faster! But put yourself in, for instance, Rattle's place, on the podium and about to work with a world class orchestra. Help?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Read the score.

Persuade the orchestra to play what you hear.

[richardfinegold]

Apparently Carlos Kleiber would listen exhaustively to recordings of works that he was going to perform.

[ardcarp]

Read the score.

Persuade the orchestra to play what you hear.

If you'll forgive me, Ferney, that's a rather simple way of putting things. I'm sure neither Rattle nor any other conductor has difficulty reading a score nor persuading an orchestra, etc, etc. In some ways it's quite easy to present to an audience a lesser-known work or indeed to give a first performance; but there are lots of ways of playing Eroica. It's not just a question of doing what the dots say.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If you'll forgive me, Ferney, that's a rather simple way of putting things.

There's usually a comment of this nature - what, if you'll forgive me, ardy, do you imagine is "simple" about this? It is the essence of performane and one of the most difficult things to do - that's why so many charlatans resort to the easier option of "interpreting" a score.

there are lots of ways of playing Eroica.

There are, indeed.

It's not just a question of doing what the dots say.

You're off again! What do you mean by "just"? How does anyone "play the Eroica" other than by scrupulous attention to the score of the Eroica - and what are these "dots"? Do you refer to Hamlet as "the letters"?

A glance at the opening page demonstrates the complexities the conductor has to face: staccato dots under a chord marked f at a Tempo marked Tempo con brio and a metronome requiring a speed of one bar per second. But the first Violins have a quadruple stop and the seconds a triple stop, so how loud can they be expected to play at that speed. Meanwhile, the rest of the orchestra is also playing, so what balance do we expect from those violins: does Beethoven want them to support the winds, brass and timps? Or have equal weight? Or be stronger? How loud is f here? How short does he want the staccatos to be? (And what's the acoustic of the concert hall going to be like?)

Having weighed up our options, we then move on to the second bar ... ! And you say "simple"?????!!!!!!!

There are decisions that a conductor has to make that are far more important than wondering how Karajan or Furtwangler or Krivine or Klemperer did it. "Reading" a score is not just looking at "the dots" - any more than anyone reads a novel or a recipe book () or a letter from a loved one just by looking at a stream of letters. "Reading" a score means hearing it in your imagination - any Musician who cannot do that shouldn't be performing the work in front of a paying public. That is the essence of performance - I won't say "the be-all and the end-all" (with a lot of Music, you need some consideration of the contemporary expectations that a composer took for granted and didn't write into the score - expectations that later traditions have replaced with their own), but by far the most important thing that any Musician can do: read the score - persuade the orchestra to play it that way.

[ardcarp]

You've clearly got the bit between your teeth here, Ferney! Put it this way; there are a multitude of things (subtle speed and dynamic gradations, phrasing, articulation) that are not in the score. A Beethoven score is by no means as comprehensively marked as, say, a Mahler score. You seem to be saying that no 'interpretation' (obviously a frowned-upon word in your book) is needed. Well, I think we shall have to listen to BAL.

Anyway, my original post was not just about Beethoven's Eroica. My point was really how conductors cope with the recorded history of well-known 'classics'. Bruckner 's 7th might be a better example as heard in December's BAL...parts of it almost a different piece in different hands.

As for:

"Reading" a score means hearing it in your imagination - any Musician who cannot do that shouldn't be performing the work in front of a paying public.

Of course it does. I don't think I was suggesting that any conductor worth his salt, let alone the great maestros, can't hear a score in their head...but how they hear certain aspects of it cannot but be coloured by previous interpretations. (Damn. I've used that word again.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - I prefer "performances" to "interpretations". I think that my response is coloured by your OP in which you seemed to suggest that conductors should have past recordings in their mind when they approach the score (damn! I've used that word again!) - and by your reduction of those score to "dots". I believe that, whilst it's probably inevitable that performers have their favourite recordings as much as the rest of us, at the point of preparing a performance these should be put out of mind. The last thing the Eroica (or the B minor Mass, or Bruckner #7 or Don Giovanni) needs is a Furtwangler "tribute band" performance. If anything, I think the best performances - no matter how much they revere the work of their predecessors - need to be equally aware of the flaws in those predecessors (in the same spirit that the Eroicacritically responds to Haydn #99 or Mozart 39).

How can they be aware of these flaws? By reading the score - and then persuading the orchestra to play what they've heard in those scores.


Postscript: coming back to Sir Simon taking the first rehearsal, what else does a Musician of his standing need beyond the score? Why should he be thinking of his predecessors any more than an actor playing Hamlet for the first time needs to consider Olivier, Gielgud, Brannagh or whoever?

[ardcarp]

Why should he be thinking of his predecessors any more than an actor playing Hamlet for the first time needs to consider Olivier, Gielgud, Brannagh or whoever?

I think that was rather the question I was trying to pose in #1. It is inevitable though to have a 'standing on the shoulders of giants' thing hanging there, plus the changing fashion of performance thing too. Whatever you say about the primacy of the score, it is impossible for your reading (or hearing) of it not to be tinged by influences of one sort and another.

This is a great chat, Ferney. Anyone else like to chip in?

[pastoralguy]

I'm writing this having looked, on the BAL thread, at the vast list of recordings (so diligently researched by Alps, as always) of The Eroica. How does a conductor arrive at his definitive interpretation of this or any other towering classic? But put yourself in, for instance, Rattle's place, on the podium and about to work with a world class orchestra. Help?

Think of the money...

[ardcarp]

That's a whole other issue...the gross disparity between what megastar conductors and rank-and-file orchestral players.are paid.

[teamsaint]

How does a conductor arrive at his definitive interpretation of this or any other towering classic?

Having read the whole thread, I ended up coming back to your question, and wondering, if in fact that is , in their heart, a conductor is really aiming at?
a performance or interpretation will always be different now, to how it would be in, say 20 years, and in their heart and mind , conductors know this, in the same way that an actor would know this about playing Hamlet, or a literary critic would understand regarding their analysis of a text.
So that aim for a "definitive" account, if that is how it is seen, is surely doomed to failure. It would have failure built in.

[ardcarp]

So that aim for a "definitive" account, if that is how it is seen, is surely doomed to failure

I did say 'his' definitive account, by which I meant an interpretation or account which approaches his ideal. It goes without saying that this is what a conductor strives for (unless he is doing a routine job in the pit or at a session). My point is to what extent previous baggage is allowed to influence that ideal.

(For 'his' also read 'her', but glad we don't use 'conductress'.)

[Petrushka]

An interesting thread and part of the fascination of what conductors do.

Does anyone remember the bit in the recent Rattle Beethoven broadcasts when the critic of the Birmingham Post recounted how he noticed that Rattle ended the scherzo of the 5th Symphony with a pizzicato instead of on the bow as most conductors do. On ringing him the following morning the critic (forgotten his name, sorry. Was it Christopher Morley?) pointed out how magical it sounded Rattle replied "I got that from Erich Kleiber".

When preparing for the 1987 New Year's concert Herbert von Karajan went back and studied all of his own recordings of the Strauss pieces on the programme and in the end chose to model his interpretations on his earliest examples recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1948/49.

Two instances there where a conductor has allowed 'previous baggage' to influence the ideal. Unless the conductor has never heard the work before and never heard a recording then the only arbiter is the score. In something like Beethoven's 5th 'previous baggage' is surely unavoidable.

[teamsaint]

Ardcarp:

i still think that " his/ her definitive account" is a fundamentally flawed concept, though of course it might have an attraction. JEGs 2 recordings of the Monteverdi vespers show this nicely,I think.

[ardcarp]

Was it Christopher Morley?

Yes it was.