# Work you’re most ready to conduct on 90 minutes notice.



## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

Note: This post is directed primarily to the non-professionals (in music), or at least to those whose position/experience does not include significant conducting experience.

Here’s the deal: Without telling you (so that you don’t have time to prepare in advance), your spouse/significant other/friend/enemy enters you in a contest, the prize of which is to be able to conduct a major orchestra in a major orchestral (including concertos, but excluding short overtures and tone poems and the like) work of your choice. The work must be conducted strictly from memory; you will have no music in front of you. You win the prize, but in accordance with the rules, you’re only notified 90 minutes prior to the performance. This will give you the opportunity for only one or maybe two listenings of your chosen work prior to taking the podium, so you’re going to have to rely mostly on the familiarity with the work that you have built up over years or decades of listening to it. So this isn’t necessarily about what you would most like to conduct if you had some time to prepair; it’s about what are you MOST prepared to conduct RIGHT NOW!

For me it would probably be the Dvorak Ninth, although the Tchaikovsky Fifth or the Mahler Second would also be contenders.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Beethoven Violin Concerto. 'Put me in coach!'


----------



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Copland's Appalachian Spring


----------



## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

re: the Copland -- Ah, yes, I might have to add that one to my short list, as well. It's one of the first pieces that I got to know really well in my early years.


----------



## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

I could do Beethoven Symphony 2, 6, 7, or 9 or Mahler Symphony 6.


----------



## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Bellini's_ Norma_


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Something as short as this concerto...






in my dream!


----------



## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

Beethoven's 7th with the Vienna Philharmonic, please.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Some of you are really ambitious.

I would consider it a miracle if I could get through Bernstein's _Overture to Candide_. Without a score???? Forget it.

Maybe Mozart's _Overture to Marriage of Figaro_.

Even though I have performed Beethoven's _Fifth_ more that any other Beethoven symphony, there is no way I could conduct the work for memory. No matter how many times one may have heard it is a lot more difficult than one would think.


----------



## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Tosca....and damn the torpedoes!


----------



## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Mine might be a tad ambitious but I've put in so many hours of air conducting I think I have my motions down for those particular pieces I listed...


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Roy Harris' Symphony #3 ... at about 17" it is probably about as much as I can manage on short notice!


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Here in The Netherlands we have a TV show called Maestro were some random TV "celebs" are prepared to conduct famous classical pieces.... It's absolutely painful to watch and such a waste of resources. While I know little about conducting, I like to think I could do a far better job than most of them. Probably not, but still... if you don't have any basic feeling for the music then why make a fool of yourself on TV.


----------



## drnlaw (Jan 27, 2016)

Fugue Meister said:


> Mine might be a tad ambitious but I've put in so many hours of air conducting I think I have my motions down for those particular pieces I listed...


I've air conducted the Mahler 2nd probably twenty times -- but it's just too dag-nabbed long and complex for me to do it by memory. And of course, as arpeggio observed, actually doing it would be way beyond most of us. But what the heck - in a fantasy, you can do ANYTHING!


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

schigolch said:


> Bellini's_ Norma_


Wow, that's a brain-full! A favorite opera of mine.


----------



## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Time to fake death or insanity for me.
Unless you let me conduct a certain piece by Cage:devil:


----------



## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I could do a fair job with something like The Imperial March or Star Wars Main Title.


----------



## brucknerian (Dec 27, 2013)

Ok god... this would literally be a dream come true!

Definitely Bruckner 9, preferably with the Finale completion by Sebastian Letocart, which has been rarely performed (only once, to my knowledge).

I find the emotionally expressive possibilities of this symphony to be practically endless. I would definitely like to play with the idea of the Trio section of the Scherzo being re-prised in the final coda, as well as the tempo dynamics of handling the many themes presented in the first movement.

This symphony has a special meaning for me, which I cannot begin to describe in words. Suffice it to say that I have heard it hundreds of times, in any number of recordings, have read portions of the score, have played portions on piano and violin, and know every bar from memory. Talk about obsessed...

If there's one moment I would just devour in this whole symphony, it would be the return of that mysterious and glorious main theme of the first movement, just before the end of that movement.

Three other works I would practically give my right arm to conduct (which is a bit of a pun, for the first work in the list)...

* Ravel's D Major Concerto for the Left Hand
* Gyorgy Ligeti's Atmospheres
* Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Probably Dvorak's 9th for me too. That doesn't mean I'd have the remotest idea how to do it, but it's been seared into my synapses since I was a kid a mere 70 years after it was written.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Beethoven 3 or 8.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Probably Sibelius 5th, it is one of those works I've listened until I don't _have to_ listen to again and is not terribly difficult to conduct.

If you could have the score a lot of Messiaen is slow and non contrapuntal enough that if you know how to wave the time signatures you can probably get the rhythm right without knowing much of the piece (though the balance will be the red flag).

Lately I've been trying to crack Boulez Notations (for orchestra) into my skull.


----------



## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

Thankfully, it's a major orchestra, so they can probably conduct themselves, more or less. I'd just choose any piece I like, and then follow the orchestra instead of having them follow me. I'm also not sure that my endurance is good enough to last through an hour-long symphony, so I'd probably choose something like Prokofiev's 1st symphony, which is only like 15 minutes. :tiphat:


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

drnlaw said:


> Note: This post is directed primarily to the non-professionals (in music), or at least to those whose position/experience does not include significant conducting experience.
> 
> Here's the deal: Without telling you (so that you don't have time to prepare in advance), your spouse/significant other/friend/enemy enters you in a contest, the prize of which is to be able to conduct a major orchestra in a major orchestral (including concertos, but excluding short overtures and tone poems and the like) work of your choice. The work must be conducted strictly from memory; you will have no music in front of you. You win the prize, but in accordance with the rules, you're only notified 90 minutes prior to the performance. This will give you the opportunity for only one or maybe two listenings of your chosen work prior to taking the podium, so you're going to have to rely mostly on the familiarity with the work that you have built up over years or decades of listening to it. So this isn't necessarily about what you would most like to conduct if you had some time to prepair; it's about what are you MOST prepared to conduct RIGHT NOW!
> 
> For me it would probably be the Dvorak Ninth, although the Tchaikovsky Fifth or the Mahler Second would also be contenders.


Most familiar with? I know Bach's Magnificat like the back of my hand, but I'm not sure it qualifies. I wouldn't say that I'd feel comparably ready with anything Classical or Romantic that is with a whole orchestra. There are large scale works that I've repeatedly read the conductor's scores of just for pleasure's sake, to the point that I can play back the majority of it in my head, but none of those works use the kind of ensemble you're referring to.


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mahler's 8th; piece a cake. :tiphat:


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1.

So, where do I go and when?


----------



## Guest (Feb 23, 2016)

Probably one of the Segerstam Orchestral Diary Sheets that doesn't require a conductor.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

*Don Carlo* , closely follow by La Traviata :tiphat:


----------



## Johnhanks (Feb 21, 2016)

Haydn man said:


> Unless you let me conduct a certain piece by Cage:devil:


I'm not so sure - I always get caught out by that tricky bit just after 3'26''.


----------



## Johnhanks (Feb 21, 2016)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Probably Sibelius 5th, it is one of those works I've listened until I don't _have to_ listen to again and is not terribly difficult to conduct.


Really? Good luck syncing those last six chords.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Johnhanks said:


> Really? Good luck syncing those last six chords.


I'll just smile and nod, and let the orchestra worry about it...after all, that's what the concertmaster's for.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

KenOC said:


> I'll just smile and nod, and let the orchestra worry about it...after all, that's what the concertmaster's for.


Which reminds me of the story about the conductor/mentor who told his student to "Go out there and don't disturb the orchestra."!


----------



## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I could do any of the Beethoven symphonies since I know them forward and backward. Also sprach Zarathustra would be fun to conduct as well.


----------



## Rhombic (Oct 28, 2013)

Borodin 2, but by conducting do you mean actually rehearsing and preparing the piece as you want or just wagging the stick? Because wagging the stick with no previous work on the piece is rather pointless. For example, I'd like to do the opening totally different to Gergiev (rather marcato and slightly aggressive but not "noisy", a controlled marcato).
Without having rehearsed, there's no way that you'll get precisely what you want by wagging the baton.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

It seems to me that the OP was meant to be light hearted.

The dilemma I have with the thread is that some are actually seriously answering.

In reality one can conduct a piece like the _Overture to the Marriage of Figaro/I]. It is essentially in 2/2 through out the work with no change in the time signature or tempo. All one has to do is be a metronome and keep a steady beat.

As a novelty we have performed short works with guest conductors drafted from the audience. A popular work we have done with one the bands that I have performed with is Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever. The problem arises after we start. There is a natural tendency to start slowing down. We try to keep the guest conductor going but 99.9999% of the time he keeps getting slower and slower and slower.....By the time we are finished, we are playing the march at one tempo and guest is conducting at a very slower tempo. It is still very distracting. If we were playing it at his tempo it would sound like a funeral march.

Anyways most competent conductors can study a score by reading the music and imagining what it would actually sound like. Even conductors who memorize works do it by studying the score not by listening to fourteen recordings of it.

For example, some have picked the New World Symphony. There are many changes in tempo and time signatures throughout the work. Without being able to study the score one is going to run into problems in just the opening of the first movement. It starts out in 4/8 for the introduction. Then in the Allegro molto it switches to 2/4. Even with a professional orchestra if you are conducting if four while the orchestra in playing in two, there are going to be serious problems.

Air conducting is great. When you are in the living room in front of the stereo. I have done it myself. But all of the experiences of air conducting will not help in front of a real orchestra. Now if one air conducts with a score, maybe one has a chance._


----------



## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I'll take that chance, as an air conductor of the Mahler 2nd (duh!) of long standing...and I have the score. Thus endeth my first post.


----------

