The Obsolete Conductor

It is highly unusual for me to post comments twice in the same month, let alone twice in the same week as I am doing today. However, I ran across this news brief from the American Symphony Orchestra League. It hits home with something I have been saying for years, so I couldn't resist sharing it with you. Here goes:

James Levine on conducting and new music
In Sunday’s (11/18) Boston Globe, Sam Allis talks with Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director James Levine about his conducting style. “Levine’s goal is to make himself, to use his own word, obsolete.” Says Levine: “What I want to hear is an orchestra that functions like a huge chamber orchestra, to communicate the conception directly to the audience. If the conductor has to control everything gesturally, the audience looks more than listens.” (My emphasis.)

What a concept: the audience listening to the music rather than watching the conductor. Ever since the histrionics of Leonard Bernstein in the 1950s, orchestra audiences (and unfortunately many musicians) have judged a conductor's effectiveness on how good he or she looks on the podium. I blame it on Bernstein because he is the first notable example of a conductor who seemingly choreographed movements to impress the public. Before that, conductors often looked awkward on the podium. For example, look at old films of Furtwangler (who conducted like a limp, marionette puppet) or Richard Strauss (who looked like he was bored out of his skull when he conducted). These great conductors were judged on the music that they made. I thought the days of conductors being judged on their musicality instead of their podium moves were over. Perhaps James Levine offers hope.

Don't get me wrong. Bernstein was a genius. I can't think of any other person in history who was able to conduct, compose, teach, and play at the level Bernstein achieved. However, his "matinee" style of conducting put the emphasis in the wrong place, in my opinion. To prove my point, look at some of the classes offered to conductors. For example, classes in movement are offered at conducting seminars and workshops. I'm not talking about the basics of conducting technique, but classes taught by theatre people in how to look good on the podium. Proponents of these classes would deny that looking good is their goal. They would say that such movements are necessary to communicate the composer's intentions via the conductor's gestures, resulting in better music making. Before Bernstein, conductors were devoted solely to the music, regardless of how they looked to the public. I really wonder if conductors like Strauss and Furtwangler could get a podium job these days.

I don't blame conductors for worrying about how they look. As I said, audiences and musicians tend to judge them on this. If you want a job, you better play the game. However, I dream of the day when a conductor is judged not on how he looks, but on what kind of product he gets from the musicians who play beneath his baton. Maybe I was born 50 years too late and this is a pipe dream. Then again, maybe Maestro Levine offers hope.