American conductors

The Traits of a Good Conductor

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I recently had a chance (but was not able) to go see Edo de Waart conduct John Adams’s “The Chairman Dances,” which is one of my desert island pieces. De Waart conducted the original recording that Adams himself uploaded to YouTube. However, I did get to see a live performance of the piece last weekend, as luck would have it, along with my beloved Sibelius No. 2 in D which I played in All-State Orchestra. It got me thinking about a childhood spent playing in orchestras, something I absolutely adored and was thrilled to get out of school for. What makes for a good conductor? What were some of the memorable experiences I remember? As an adult, I have sung in a few choruses and ensembles. I have also studied and done a bit of conducting, so this contributes to my understanding of the field.

A conductor is not supposed to be “nice.” Granted, s/he must not be abusive or inappropriate, and thank goodness for the changes that are being made to create safer musical environments. We do not need Levine’s behavior again or a fictitious Lydia Tár. But some musicians complain about conductors who are tough and not friendly while conducting, to which my answer is, they are not there to be your friend. A conductor should be demanding. His/her number one priority is to get the best sound possible out of the orchestra or chorus. Did the second violins not get that passage right? Well then, let’s do it again with that section until we get it right. Are the altos coming in too early? Then let’s try the entrance with all four voices. The conductor’s priority is the sound, and the various instruments/voices are the components that comprise that sound.

The popular opinion is that a conductor is simply beating time, but there is so much more to the art. How well does a conductor cue the instruments’ entrances? Indicate dynamics? How does the conductor beat time–with a baton or with hands, slightly ahead of- or right on the beat? Not even top-tier orchestra conductors do this well– there is one who comes to mind whom I dare not mention, but his conducting style was with his hands cupped and rather odd. Does the conductor emote in an over-the-top way, like a Bernstein, or is s/he more subdued, indicating only the minimum, trusting that the musicians are reading the score and having an internal sense of how to express the composer’s intentions? And on that last point, the style of conducting will vary based on the composer. A concerto grosso or Handel opera will require different demands than a Mahler symphony or a 20th century work by William Grant Still.

A good conductor knows what to highlight in the music. If conducting Dvořák, the strings are especially lyrical. Sibelius often features majestic, powerful brass, but it must not overpower the lighter instruments. The aforementioned “The Chairman Dances” requires razor-sharp, precision timing with absolutely no room for error. The conductor knows how to get the best tone color from each instrument, and what the musicians in each section are able to do. The woodwinds might be very strong in an orchestra, but the basses weak, for example, or there might be the proverbial problem of not enough tenors in a chorus, so the repertoire chosen must be suited to that issue.

Certain exercises can be very helpful even if the ensemble members find them unorthodox. When I was a senior in high school, during All-State Orchestra the conductor had each pair of stand partners sit in a different place in an orchestra, i.e., a pair of tubas might sit next to a pair of violins, etc. This was a wonderful and challenging exercise because it forced each instrument to be very aware of their part, their entrances, and to be able to maintain their own musical line while sitting next to a completely different instrument that was doing something else. When in junior high, I had a great privilege of attending a string orchestra camp where the gifted Robert Spano was conducting us (even at my young age, I knew he would be going places.) He made us play a line of Corelli over and over, looking to see that we were within 2 inches of the other violinists’ bows to maintain a consistency of sound. While some might call this exigent, fussy, or demanding, to me, it was a sign of a brilliant conductor who respected the music. The exercise has stuck with me all these years, and I suppose subconsciously I still observe how closely the violinists’ bow strokes are to each other in an orchestra.

Opera is a whole different beast which merits its own blog post, but an opera conductor must lead the orchestra as well as the singers on stage (who are at a whole different eye level). What makes this especially challenging is that the conductor must lead the orchestra according to the singers. Granted, singers must not take excessive liberties with the music, but the orchestra is there to serve the singer, not the other way around. If the singer is taking rubato, for example, the conductor must be aware of this and make sure that the orchestra is observing exactly what the singer is doing, even if they think the piece needs to resume a tempo. This sounds like an obvious thing to do, and yet I have observed countless professional performances where this does not happen.

Finally, there is the point of women conductors. Women make for excellent conductors, as we are often multitaskers. Often, we have to juggle many things at once–career, children, spouse–and these skills are a big asset to conducting. One could argue that women by nature are expressive and have a biology that allows us to be very much in touch with our emotions. We have strongly developed right and left brains. I was fortunate to be conducted by a Bowling Green State University named Emily Freeman Brown professor as a child, and a couple others along the way. However, it is quite disheartening to see the dearth of women conductors in the top tiers, though that is slowly changing, thanks to Marin Alsop and those who have come before and after her. And it is disheartening to think that there are fewer minority professional women conductors–I can’t think of one. This is something that must change, and women have to be encouraged and give us the opportunities to rise in the field of major professional conducting. There is no good reason why a woman isn’t as good of a conductor as a man, and precedent is no excuse.

Lenny B. at 103: A Personal Reflection on Leonard Bernstein

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What can be said about the great Leonard Bernstein that hasn’t been said already? He was exuberant, obnoxious, a struggling gay man who was married to a devoted martyr of a wife with whom he had three children, a genius, a showoff, etc. What can be said that’s new is my own personal reflections and experiences with the music and works of Leonard Bernstein, whom I consider to be the greatest American composer. Yesterday, August 25, marked the 103rd anniversary of his birth, and I consider it only fitting that I pay tribute to “Lenny.”

I can’t remember exactly when it was that I encountered Bernstein’s music; it would be safe to say that it was when I first listened to and saw the musical “West Side Story” as a pre-teen, though chances are I would have seen him conducting on PBS on “Great Performances” as a child (one of the few programs my mother would actually encourage me to watch.) The haunting, lyrical melodies, the explosive Latin rhythms, the ability to go from tender to exuberant at the drop of a hat–it was also marvelous and moving, there was no other music like it.

Perhaps no piece exemplifies Leonard Bernstein better than the music to the operetta “Candide,” which I discovered in college and was just enthralled by. During my senior year, I took a class on American musical theater, and we had to choose a work that interested us and write a paper on it. Given that I was a classical musician, I was especially fascinated by this crossover work that was certainly much more complex and lush than a musical yet had catchy enough melodies that would linger in your head! I spent a lot of time listening to the album, reflecting on the profundity of the words, and developed a strong desire to read the play (which, shamefully, I still have not done) and see the work in person. Only many years later did I get to see “Candide” live in a wonderful university production, though I did see the televised production with Kristin Chenoweth.

When I moved to New York, it was inevitable that I would get to know more about the life and work of “Lenny,” as it was his city. During my first round of graduate school in my master’s program at Columbia University’s Teachers College, I took a class on the development of creativity with another leading figure in his field, Howard Gruber. We were required to write a paper on the creative processes of someone whom we chose. I chose Leonard Bernstein. I enjoyed reading his biographies, learning about his very complex personality, musicality, and personal life (by most accounts, Bernstein was really a gay man who married a woman, though he loved his wife very much). I found his life trajectory very fascinating, given his humble origins in Boston and not only his musical brilliance as a performer but also his ability to communicate to audiences and children. He had a bit of rabbi in him, educating others, and studying deeply, quite the scholar. It struck me that he was so uniquely American, a product of this culture in the best possible ways: Jewish, first-generation, artistic, intellectual, supporting black people and human rights and social justice. 

Not long after that class, there was some series on the works of Bernstein at Lincoln Center. I found out that his son Alexander was going to be there, and I had the chutzpah to take a copy of the paper I had written. I got to meet him after one talk, and Alexander was incredibly kind and gracious, and accepted the paper from that gushing 25-year-old who was a fan of his father. Much to my surprise, Alexander wrote me and praised my paper, and I was absolutely thrilled!

Over the years, I listened to more of Bernstein and both his own compositions as well as other pieces he conducted, even sung his work in a chorus. Yes, sometimes his conducting style was over-the-top and to put it mildly, expressive in a way that few other conductors were. He certainly had his detractors. But one need only to listen to his recordings of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 6 that starts slowly and then takes off like a windup doll, and the Wagner’s Overture to Tannhäuser with the NY Philharmonic from 1968 (a piece of music on my top 5 desert island choices) that is so beautifully phrased and expressive that it can move you to tears, or at least goosebumps. Just imagine that thick-featured, very handsome face breathing with the music as he moves like a ballet dancer on the podium, waving the baton as though it were an extension of his arm. And consider the irony of the most Jewish of men conducting the works of an anti-Semite who was loved by the biggest anti-Semite and demagogue who ever lived. That was Bernstein: making something his own, something so beautiful that it transcended hate.

A few years ago, his daughter Jamie narrated a concert that featured videos of his Young People’s Concerts with music from those concerts played live by the NY Philharmonic. It felt like a welcome re-introduction to Bernstein’s work and legacy, as I was not born when that program was shown on TV. What struck me was how accessible Bernstein was trying to make classical music, so that it became a part of a child’s education and not just something highbrow for wealthy, upper-class New Yorkers like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (who was a big supporter of his). 

Bernstein always made music fun. He made it come alive with a tremendous sensual, erotic energy, full of highs and lows, just like the man himself. If memory serves me correctly, I remember reading a quote by his father that said, “How was I supposed to know that my son Leonard Bernstein was going to be the Leonard Bernstein?” There was never anyone quite like Leonard Bernstein, and there never will be. Happy Birthday, dear Lenny.