October 30, 2009: How conductors communicate

Anyone who enjoys attending orchestra concerts but has wondered over just what is communicated between conductor and orchestra and how those messages are communicated will probably enjoy reading James Oestreich's story in today's New York Times.  It is an account of two rehearsals that Bernard Haitink conducted with the Julliard Orchestra in preparation for a relatively brief (approximately one hour) concert to be given late Saturday afternoon in Alice Tully Hall.  That program will begin with Felix Mendelssohn's "Hebrides" concert overture (also known as "Fingal's Cave"), followed by the second symphony of Johannes Brahms.  From my selfish point of view, this article could not have come at a better time, having spent two weeks focused on Osmo Vänskä's "full body" approach to conducting, not to mention my past use of Classical TV as a resource for studying Pierre Boulez' conducting strategies.  I have done a fair amount of theorizing about this communication question on my blog;  but, because Oestreich's account is directed at general readers, rather than academic specialists, I felt that it was appropriate to bring it to the attention of those who read this forum regularly.

To the extent that the performance of music is often a matter of finding the right fit between the style of the composer and the style of the performer(s), Oestreich did well to begin with a statement of Haitink's personal style of verbal communication:

He addresses an orchestra, when he has to, softly and succinctly. As a result, the players strain to listen. More often they watch.

This contrasts sharply with the accounts of many of the conductors provided in Norman Lebrecht's Maestro Myth book.  For his part Oestreich selects for his point of contrast the tendency towards "philosophical disquisitions" of Leonard Bernstein (a tendency that, by at least some local accounts, seems to have rubbed off on Michael Tilson Thomas).  For me the point that registers in Haitink's style is the desire to keep verbal communication at a minimum but to make sure that, when it needs to be engaged, it should be effective.  Consider Oestreich's account of the beginning of the first rehearsal:

“Let’s start and let’s get to know each other a little bit,” Mr. Haitink said, and he proceeded to lead the students through the entire first movement of Brahms’s Second Symphony, using only fluid motions of his baton and left hand, penetrating eyes and lively facial expressions, no speech.

“That’s good,” he said at the end. “It sounds as if you already know the piece. That’s a big help.”

In other words getting "to know each other" is a matter of homing in on that first question of communication:  For this particular ensemble performing this particular work, what needs to be communicated?  Previous experience with the score quickly narrows down the scope of the answer to that question (which is important when rehearsal time is limited, which it almost always is).

However, the next stage indicates that knowing the piece is often a matter of precision:

He took up the movement again in fits and starts, repeatedly calling attention to the quiet dynamic markings.

Even when the music is familiar, there can be a need to stress fidelity to what is actually in the notation of the parts.  (Those who saw the rehearsal session of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin that was tacked on to the end of the PBS broadcast should recall that almost all of conductor Valery Gergiev's attention had to do with the orchestra recognizing and realizing all the details in Tchaikovsky's notation.)  Haitink elaborated in an interview on the problems of dynamics, particularly the soft ones:

In principle, orchestras, professional as well as student, always play too loud. You never have to ask for forte. It comes by itself. You only have to ask for kinds of forte.

This became the focus of a two and a half hour rehearsal this past Tuesday evening.  Rehearsing Mendelssohn did not begin until after the break in the Thursday rehearsal:

Here, probably suspecting that the students would know less about Mendelssohn and his music than about Brahms, he spoke for a minute or so. He told of a Mendelssohn letter in his possession. He eventually waxed positively poetic about the music — the waves; the sun coming through for a moment, then disappearing; the rain clouds — though not without embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he said, “these are a little bit silly comparisons, but ——”

In spite of that apology, it was clear this his "but" carried considerable weight.  Oestreich's account gives a strong indication that these students did not "get" Mendelssohn the way they had "gotten" the Brahms through past experience.  This may not have been a matter of how many times they had played each of these works.  It could also have arisen from the impact that classroom time in subjects like analysis and history can have on getting a performer's head in the right place, so to speak.  While I often express concern over those who prefer theory to practice, performance can be just as problematic when the pendulum swings to practice that is totally oblivious to theory.

Finding that point between the two extremes of the pendulum (which, as any good physics student knows, is where the kinetic energy is greatest, as good a metaphor for committed performance as any) may be another key to the general communication question.  The "what" of communication may have to proceed beyond the details of the notation, however meticulously those details may have been recorded.  At this point the "how" of communication may have to draw upon communicating not about the notation but about the context of that notation;  and analysis may provide the best tool for teasing out that context.  This strategy was evident in the master class that Steven Isserlis gave at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music last month, in which exchanges with the student over questions of analysis were as important as demonstrations of specific performance strategies.

Needless to say, Oestreich's report provides only a few data points.  He did not cover all of the rehearsals, nor is this a story about how the nature of communication changes (if at all) when one moves from the rehearsals to the actual performance(s).  Nevertheless, it provides a well-written and valuable perspective on the role that communication plays in musical performance;  and that is an excellent resource for both regular and occasional concertgoers.