5. CSC's most important goal in rehearsal with the orchestra was to always show the orchestra that you are listening to them. this is a good tie-in to point number 1. a conductor should never presume that he knows more about what is important than the orchestra musicians themselves do, and it's usually pretty obvious when a conductor expects something to happen and tries to prevent or encourage it without hearing whether it actually has happened. the first day of the class, one of the auditors was conducting beethoven 1 first movement, and when an important but sort of scrubby moment came for the seconds, she held out an arm to them and shook it vigorously, shouting, "MORE!" over the din. it was epitome high school teacher, and represents this point rather well. conductors should never do anything without making sure it is needed. the fact of the matter is that the orchestra, in most cases, can handle itself perfectly fine. a conductor has to make sure that what he does will not merely be ignored by the orchestra, so it is in everyone's best interests to minimize extraneous conducting. from an orchestra perspective, nothing is more annoying than a conductor telling you to do what you believe you were already doing.
6. soloists should be able to participate in a collaborative process. the conductor should never expect that the soloist behave like just another musician in the orchestra. having performed as a soloist before, i feel all of this is quite natural for me, but it was surprising the number of times that other conductors in the class, for example, simply lifted their batons and started without making sure the soloist was ready. there was often a sort of lack of interest in the soloist, leaving him to merely be expressive and awesome on his own. there were also a number of spectacular fails in terms of staying together with him, but i will chalk that up to it being difficult to hear a soloist behind you and an orchestra in front of you at the same time. but of the six participants i thought only one or perhaps two showed a particularly keen interest in taking care of the soloist. there was one person in particular who managed to completely arouse the ire of CSC by his manner of brusqueness towards soloist and orchestra, which, whether he meant it to or not, came off as arrogant and interfered with his listening to the soloist several times, resulting in a pretty spectacularly embarrassing rehearsal. like in point 5, it is not important just to listen but to give everyone the impression you are listening as well, by looking at them (which only one person did very often with the soloist) and engaging them visually. after all, you have nothing else to engage them with.
7. this last point is simple. one should always try to carry the sound with their gesture. every beat and every motion in between every beat should be able to "carry" something, and if a beat is given too easily it cheapens the music. of course, sometimes music deserves ease and lightness. and there are conductors out there who simply are able to give music easily, without becoming too engaged about it, and actually this is generally what professional orchestras prefer (at least, compared to someone who tries to demonstrate everything and is generally seen as "too eager" to a jaded bunch of musicians). CSC drew us a lineage of conductors which included two main schools - those who were stately, clear, and a bit more reticent; and the lineage he himself is part of, which is effusive, expressive, and heart-on-sleeve. having been taught by bernstein and ozawa it's easy to see why this is the case. but even if one is part of the other school it's never the case that they want to make light of the music. ease is good, but too much ease is a bit cheapening. there was one person in particular at the class who never quite got this.
OK, that concludes the recap of the CSC masterclass. back to normal music blogs!
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