Page 48 - BBC Music (January 2020)

Fifteen categories of conductor
as one player made a joke about to his cost
– on tour with the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra in 1938, double bassist Gerald
Greenberg decided it would be amusing to
buy a telescope and, mid-rehearsal, pull it
out and focus on the maestro. Big mistake.
Greenberg was sacked soon after.
Baton wielders
8 One way to avoid having to move
much yet still give a clear beat is to use a
very long baton. Arthur Nikisch knew this,
as did his pupil Adrian Boult, wielder of a
21-inch weapon. ‘I watched Nikisch very
carefully,’ recalled Boult on TV in 1971,
‘and I realised that he was inherently a very
lazy man, as I am. But I saw that he was
doing far more with his fingers than most
conductors, with the result that the stick
was a much more expressive thing. It was
said at the time that if you shut Nikisch up
in a glass box and asked him to conduct
anything, you’d be able to tell at the end of
ten bars what he was conducting.’
Handy types
9 And some use no baton at all. Leopold
Stokowski and Pierre Boulez never felt the
need to wave a stick, while Otto Klemperer
started with one before going baton-free
for 30 years, only picking it up again at the
age of 82. Countless choral conductors also
like to let their hands do the work, shaping
the sound with all manner of weird and
wonderful – and, frankly, sometimes
unfollowable – gestures.
Style icons
10 Malcolm ‘Flash Harry’ Sargent
loved looking smart in tie and tails. As
did Herbert von Karajan – the German
was music’s most photogenic maestro,
and didn’t he just know it. Whether on the
podium, in the studio or at the controls 12 Once upon a time, conductors were
of his plane, Karajan was always happy
to pose for a snap or several , so just
imagine his delight when he was officially
named Vienna’s Best Dressed Man in the
1970s. All the more strange, then, that he
requested to be buried not in his concert-
hall best, but in his tracksuit.
Hair bears
11 If you can’t look sleek and stylish,
wild and woolly is often the next best
option. Willem Mengelberg’s occasionally
50 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Herbert von Karajan
was music’s most
photogenic maestro,
and didn’t he know it
maverick approach to the score was
matched by hair of much the same
mindset, and Simon Rattle’s fuzzy barnet
brought him instant recognisability from
the outset. Spare a thought, meanwhile, for
Brussels Philharmonic maestro Stéphane
Denève, who must spend a fortune on
hair gel trying to get his unruly ginger
locks under control before stepping out on
stage… only for them inevitably to escape 15 Many are the maestros who have
and be roaming free within but a few bars.
Communicators
largely regarded as lofty and imperious,
to be kept out of reach of the hoi polloi.
Leonard Bernstein was having none of
that. Through his educational broadcasts
from the 1950s, he introduced the art
of the maestro, and classical music in
general, to millions of TV viewers in the
US. André Previn then carried on the good
work on this side of the Pond, and today
the conducting world is choc-a-bloc with
those who are as comfortable speaking
to an audience as they are wielding the
baton in front of one. While some confine
themselves to musical matters, others
– not least Bernstein’s own protégée
Marin Alsop – have proved powerful
commentators on far wider issues.
Control freaks
13 Carlos Kleiber was an infrequent
performer. Or, as Karajan put it: ‘Carlos
tells me, “I conduct only when I’m hungry”.
And it’s true. He has a deep-freeze. He fills
it up and cooks for himself, and when it
gets down to a certain level, then he thinks
“Now I might do a concert”.’ When Kleiber
did conduct, however, nothing was left to
chance. With an intimate knowledge of the
score, he would require hours of rehearsal,
polishing every semi-quaver. And his
musicians utterly adored him for it.
Youngsters
14 With top positions at orchestras
and opera houses today regularly filled by
those still in their 20s, the familiar quip
about bus drivers looking younger than
they used to could apply to conductors too.
Youthful maestros are not an entirely new
phenomenon, though. Many years before
he turned scary (see No. 1), George Szell
was impressing the great and good as a
teenager of formidable talents, conducting
the Berlin Phil at 17 and taking part in the
first ever recording of Strauss’s Don Juan
a year later. Mind you, Szell was ancient
compared to Lorin Maazel, who conducted
Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony for the
first time at just eight years old.
Veterans
carried on well into their 80s and 90s,
bringing years of insight and experience
to the podium. A special mention must
be made here, however, for Stanis!aw
Skrowaczewski. In 2010, Skrowaczewski
was due to travel from his home in
Poland for a concert with the Hallé in
Manchester, but the recent eruption of
the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland
had grounded all flights. Most conductors
would have seen this as a reasonable
excuse to cancel. Not Stan. Instead, he
hired cars to drive him the 800 miles
(plus Channel crossing) to his destination,
arriving just in time for a quick rehearsal
before show time. He was 86 at the time.