ABSTRACT
Conducting an orchestra is an activity performed in full public view. There is no secret science of conducting, like the techniques of learning how to play an instrument, which can take a long time to master – even a whole lifetime. The public is able to observe all the mysterious messages that pass between conductor and orchestra. Indeed, conducting is just such an art of ‘passing messages’, whereby relatively simple movements convey rhythm, sonority, dynamics and whatever else constitutes the sound the players are required to make, down to the last little detail. The means by which this is achieved is clear for all to see. We watch the players keeping their eye on the conductor – though they frequently appear not to – and we observe the conductor’s gestures. Since they are governed by the need to convey tempo and rhythm, these gestures have little scope for variation. Yet are there any greater differences that bear upon an orchestra than those conveyed by different conductors? I am not talking about interpretation, which will of necessity vary according to conductors’ differing personalities, but of the physical qualities of the orchestral sound, which emerge far earlier, and often far more decisively, than anything related to interpretation.
