On Conducting |
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able accents admire allegro con brio andante art of conducting artistic audience Bayreuth become BEETHOVEN Berlin BERLIOZ better BIZET breath-pauses BÜLOW cadenzas caprices Carmen chorus composer concert Conducting from memory crescendo crotchets diminuendo dramatic Dresden ductor Eighth Symphony Eisenach ELLIS's translation ensemble expression feeling fermate formances FÜRSTENAU genius Germany give given HABENECK HANS VON BÜLOW heard Herr imitate interpretation later Leipzig LISZT marked master Meiningen orchestra melody melos merely metronomic minor Symphony modifications of tempo moto movement MOZART Ninth Symphony nuances nuendo once opera conductor opinion overture passage performance phrasing piano piece played players POLLINI possible question realised recognised rehearsal remarks render ritenuto rubato scenery score semiquaver Siegfried significant singers slow tempo spirit stage manager style success temperament tempi theatre theme things thought time-beater to-day tour understanding Valkyrie WAGNER says WAGNER'S Prose wanted WEBER WEINGARTNER whole
Popular passages
Page 23 - ... as it is subordinated to a homogeneous conception of the essential nature of the whole work — a continuous conception that dominates all detail. It is this homogeneous conception of the essential nature of a musical work that constitutes what there is of specially artistic in its interpretation; it originates in a deep feeling that is not dependent on the intellect, that cannot, indeed, even be influenced by this, while it itself must dominate everything that pertains to the intellect — such...
Page 17 - I regret that I never saw Wagner conduct. He was described to me; the body, of no more than middle-height, with its stiff deportment, the movement of the arms not immoderately great or sweeping, but decisive and very much to the point; showing no restlessness, in spite of his vivacity; usually not needing the score at the concert; fixing his expressive glance on the players and ruling the orchestra imperially, like the Weber he used to admire as a boy. The old flautist Filrstenau of Dresden told...
Page 49 - ... to stop or to pad with something of his own, which means disfiguring the work. I have even heard Billow, who had a remarkable memory, "improvising" in this way in his piano recitals. Here, as in so many other cases, it only needs someone with the courage to begin and the others will follow. Billow, in his witty way, divided conductors into those who have their heads in the score and those who have the score in their heads. I might distinguish them, perhaps rather more deeply, by means of the...
Page 17 - Filrstenau of Dresden told me that often, when Wagner conducted, the players had no sense of being led. Each believed himself to be following freely his own feeling, yet they all worked together wonderfully. It was Wagner's mighty will that powerfully but unperceived had overborne their single wills, so that each thought himself free, while in reality he only followed the leader, whose artistic force lived and worked in him. "Everything went so easily and beautifully that it was the height of enjoyment,"...
Page 20 - The proper expression can be obtained without any change of the main tempo — be it "ever so little" — if the strings, who have the first two bars of the theme, are told to bring them out energetically and very precisely by a uniform down-bowing of the crotchets, thus preventing the last quaver of the first bar from being turned, as often happens, into a semiquaver, whereby indeed, as Wagner says, the effect of a dance-step is given; and when we consider that the tempo of the main part of the...
Page 19 - Bulow's work had also its harmful features, for which the guilt lies both with himself and a number of his followers ; and to expose these and attack them is as much a duty of sincerity as to acknowledge the gains with frank delight. In the first place, it cannot be denied that even while he was leader of the Meiningen orchestra there was often to be detected a pedagogic element in Bulow's renderings. It was clearly seen that he wished to deal a blow on the one side at philistine, metronomic time-beating,...
Page 20 - ... was tossed about like a withered leaf in the uncontrollable rush of the allegro" — that he induced Billow to play it in the true sense of the composer, modifying "ever so little" the hitherto passionate tempo, "so that the orchestra might have a proper chance to accentuate this dual theme, with its rapid fluctuation between great energy and thoughtful self-content." All who have heard this overture under Billow must agree with me that at the place in question he by no means made "ever so little...
Page 21 - ... 3/4 section is about equivalent to a minim, and so to a third of a bar in the 3/2 section, whereby the crotchets at the entry of the allegro do not become about half what they are in the introduction. In this way any ritenuto at the place in question is superfluous, and the "terrific earnestness" of the and the "calm self-confidence" of the two following bars are made perfectly clear1.
Page 44 - TU-4— +in so slow a tempo that he had to beat each semiquaver of the triplet separately ! But enough of these examples. I need mention no names in order to point out that several conductors of importance have refused to have anything to do with these perversions of style. I may also say that...