carl st. clair (hereafter referred to as CSC) told us perhaps the third or fourth day into the workshop that the mission of conductors could be encapsulated in two words. he made us guess for a while. it turned out that the answer was "creating atmosphere."
this is true in many senses. while obviously some will debate that that is the sole or even the most important focus of conducting, perhaps the only other thing that one could say that was as important and not able to be really included in that very broad mission statement would refer to ensemble, coherence, and the fact that originally conductors were only required to keep large groups of musicians playing in sync. i don't think that one can really include this as a branch of "creating atmosphere."
nevertheless, it is an extraordinarily illuminating perspective. the discovery point, for studying conductors, would have to lie in what that statement isn't. in some ways it seems broad to the point of meaninglessness, but notice that is is not: keeping rhythm. leading players. inspiring music. or even: creating music.
and once we look at this particular verb and this particular noun, we can understand more of why a conductor exists.
the fact that it doesn't have to do only with leading, directing, or demonstrating is by now obvious. a conductor never wants to be seen as "the leader." s/he never wants to give off the impression that s/he is "in charge," bold, the guy/girl who is going to tell everyone how to do it. these are all positive descriptors, and strictly speaking, preferable to the opposite. but none of these are the point.
the same is true, perhaps, for verbs like "inspiring," "projecting," "portraying." these verbs have a quiet implication that the conductor is the music, and the musicians are the tools he uses to express what's inside. while that is partially true, there is in some sense a wall set up by verbs like these - the idea that inside the conductor is what must be expressed, and it's his job to sort of align all the musicians with his vision.
i'm going to go ahead and platitudinously state that what these verbs perhaps lose sight of is the fact that the conductor does not produce any sound himself. and for that revelation the second word is much more useful than the first, in my view. what else might one put in the "noun" blank? line, phrasing, information. but two at-first-tempting options - sound and music - should actually be conspicuously absent from the list (and all the subsets they imply). the conductor produces no sound. what on earth is he going to create? he can't create phrasing, the musicians do that. he can't create the conviction in the sound that impacts the audience so much. the musicians do that, too.
for every second, once the music begins to be produced by the musicians, the conductor has virtually no control over what is going to go out to the audience. there are two spaces: the space before the music is produced, and the space during and after. the conductor deals exclusively in the first. he creates the space in which the musicians place their music. by setting up a room in different configurations one can manipulate the comfort level, intensity, energy, and mood of what goes on inside it. but once those things start happening there is virtually nothing one can do (with regard to the room's layout). the conductor hopes that what is inside him will be conveyed by the atmosphere he sets up before the musicians start playing. but he can't lead the charge into what actually happens, because he never actually takes part in the "happening" stage. he creates the atmosphere via his own energy; then the musicians play as they will.
i think the reason i like this portrayal is because of its humility. many people want to stand in front of an orchestra because they feel they are qualified, entitled, or enjoy leading people. i'm not really any different. but it's great to have a mission statement that doesn't really emphasize the fact that we happen to be standing in front. in fact, we only stand in front so that people will be able to see us, and that's the only thing that enables us to create any atmosphere at all. if nobody were looking at us (or sensing us, or whatever), then they could also just look at someone else. or not anyone at all.
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