# Are unpleasant conductors better?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Listening to Dvorak’s 7th Symphony, George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. Wow. Double wow. The orchestra delivers Szell’s vision of the music, in spades!

Of course Szell, like Toscanini, was a famous musical tyrant, a Stalin of the symphony. Was that the secret? Are today’s performances, made in a kinder and gentler world, more “vanilla” consensus versions lacking the same force? What say ye?


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

No matter how unpleasant the conductor, if the _music_ is unpleasant, the conductor won't be able to do much with it, even on his worst bad-hair-day days!


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

A conductor must have authority, which includes being respected by his or her colleagues. Whether they have a way of dealing with people which is authoritarian or approachable shouldn’t make too much of an impact on their work. It’s a job with its perks but also many pressures. For one thing, a conductor is very exposed on the podium before highly knowledgeable and experienced colleagues (especially the section leaders).

Speaking of the past, some had massive egos - others I’d add to examples of KenOC are Mahler, Solti and Stokowski - while others had a more facilitative approach (eg. Dorati, Ormandy, Ansermet). The conductors of previous generations built music into what it is today. American orchestras rose to prominence in the 20th century on the back of conductors who had talent and ambition. Previous to them, that country could only attract also-ran kapellmeisters from Europe.

Vladimir Ashkenazy has stated that a conductor’s job description is hard to pin down. Part leader and mentor, promoter and face of the orchestra, a person who gets either total adulation or revulsion from critics and public alike. He or she also has to deal with other big egos outside the orchestra, eg. soloists, Prima donnas of one type or another, board members, bean counters, PR, the list goes on.

Incidentally I have that very Dvorak recording by Szell (coupled with Smetana) and I think it is brilliant.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is true that many of the conductors of the past who produced amazing performances did so by behaving badly with their orchestras. But I sometimes wonder if they might have achieved even more if they had been more pleasant. I do sometimes feel that Reiner's and Szell's performances (wonderful though they could be) were just a little "hard", or not human enough. Were they sometimes "great performances" laid out in front of us rather than the experience of the music talking to us? 

And, anyway, what orchestras would accept in the past might not be acceptable now - so bad behaviour is less of an option, now. But even the most calm and polite conductor can still be a bit machiavellian in getting rid of players who they feel are not on board with their approach. There are many ways to be a tyrant. 

From the past, Beecham springs to mind as a conductor who achieved stunning results while behaving well with his orchestras. Barbirolli, too, and Tennstedt. I think Colin Davis was also decent. And among more recent conductors, it seems to me that Harnoncourt found no need to be unpleasant and I commented recently in another thread that Oramo seems to enjoy being pleasant and encouraging - both have produced some stunning work. I wonder how Boulez was? 

I'm also mindful of how many recent conductors we have lost to an alleged habit of using their power to demand sexual favours from their players - some of those got good performances, too, but presumably no-one would want to suggest that behaviour that was effectively rape led to better results than better behaved conductors could achieve.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Listening to Dvorak's 7th Symphony, George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. Wow. Double wow. The orchestra delivers Szell's vision of the music, in spades!
> 
> Of course Szell, like Toscanini, was a famous musical tyrant, a Stalin of the symphony. Was that the secret? Are today's performances, made in a kinder and gentler world, more "vanilla" consensus versions lacking the same force? What say ye?


If I could re word the OP query, he seems to be asking if recordings made in the days when a Conductor could get away with tyrannical behavior are necessarily better than current recordings, in which musicians enjoy better protections from capricious behavior. Today's unpleasant Conductors are known more for sexual harassment than screaming at Tuba players in rehearsal.
So, are the recordings of the older tyrants better? It depends. Take the Szell Dvorak seventh referenced in the OP. I grew up with that recording, and it is certainly impressive, but now I prefer Giuliani, Colin Davis, or Dorati. In different ways they allow the music to sing and still score dramatic points without sounding fierce. Szell's Mahler could be so brusque that his lack of affinity for the Composer is glaringly obvious. Szell's Beethoven, however, I could not live without. Toscanini couldn't do Mozart. Fritz Reiner never programmed English Music.

Regarding our modern breed of predatory maestros:
Did Charles Dutoit improve the singing in Operas that he conducted by forcibly jamming his tongue down the throats of female singers he cornered in elevators? Did James Levine or Robert King improve the singing of children's choirs by terrorizing boy altos?
The question is to stupid to contemplate


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

SONNET CLV said:


> No matter how unpleasant the conductor, if the _music_ is unpleasant, the conductor won't be able to do much with it, even on his worst bad-hair-day days!


Actually there's also the opposite experience, to some extent - performance means a lot for appreciating or disliking music, at least when you start to know more of it. Performers can ruin Mozart or Bruckner, likewise elevate Schönberg and Messiaen into something sublime.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The day of the podium tyrant conductor is over. I think it was Rattle who said something like, "If you're going to be a right b*****d you'd better be perfect!" Being in charge does not mean terrorising or being rude to people. Even a despot like Karajan had endless patience and never lost his temper with an orchestra because he said if you start shouting at players then it makes them more nervous and they play worse not better. In any case society has changed and there is no way any conductor today would get away with what the likes of Mahler, Verdi, Toscanini, Reiner & co, got away with. And rightly so.


----------



## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Listening to Dvorak's 7th Symphony, George Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. Wow. Double wow. The orchestra delivers Szell's vision of the music, in spades!
> 
> Of course Szell, like Toscanini, was a famous musical tyrant, a Stalin of the symphony. Was that the secret? Are today's performances, made in a kinder and gentler world, more "vanilla" consensus versions lacking the same force? What say ye?


I believe that was the secret to his success but I find no universality in the connection.

Each individual has his own method and what may serve one will fail another.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Yes, the day of the dictatorial tyrant is over. Modern work ethics would never allow it and a lot of people are softer than they used to be. There are actually still several out there who cling to the old ways and try to act like a martinet. The question is though, did it make for better music making? I don't think so, at least based on recordings. Sure, the likes of Szell and Reiner made some fantastic recordings, but so did more gentlemanly and humane conductors of old like Mitropoulos, Barbirolli and Walter.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Triplets said:


> If I could re word the OP query, he seems to be asking if recordings made in the days when a Conductor could get away with tyrannical behavior are necessarily better than current recordings, in which musicians enjoy better protections from capricious behavior. Today's unpleasant Conductors are known more for sexual harassment than screaming at Tuba players in rehearsal.


The answer to that side of the question is easy - no, the performances of the past are not better than today's performances. I can think of so many great recordings that have come out in the last 15 years. Nor is it true (as I have already shown by example) that the great performances of the past were all achieved by tyrants. Many were achieved by well behaved great conductors!


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm not too sure whether the more hard*** traits to a conductor's attitude made any real difference to the eventual music-making - in the final analysis you are either good at what you do or you aren't. In the days when a dictatorial attitude was perhaps something to be expected rather than be surprised at the same theory could be applied to military commanders or company MDs - as long as they won battles or increased the dividends of the shareholders that was all that seemed to matter, irrespective of how much they upset the sensitivities of the individuals beneath them. In the latter case I don't think that has ever really gone away.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

...................................


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Are today's performances, made in a kinder and gentler world, more "vanilla" consensus versions lacking the same force? What say ye? _

I don't think much has changed in conductors' outlook though things have changed a lot in society. Both James Levine and Charles Dutoit were outed for sexual issues. Daniel Gatti was dissed for outrageous behavior before audiences and the orchestra, then essentially admitted inappropriate sexual actions and voluntarily stepped down at another orchestra.

Many conductors have big egos, especially famous ones. The days of a Toscanini firing people at practice and raging about playing is probably over thanks to unions. A guy like Szell, who was simply a prick, is probably not over but one wonders how well musicians would play for him in 2018. Things were so much different 50 years ago.

If you want some first-hand info on Szell read Anshel Brusilow's book https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Conduc...543416137&sr=1-1&keywords=shoot+the+conductor. Brusilow played for Monteaux, Ormandy and Szell and has a lot to say about them.

Personally … I rarely found Szell's musicmaking all that glorious. He and Karajan were the chief architects of what a critic once called the school of industrial perfection -- perfect playing with high sheen and no heart, guts or humanity behind it. I like some of Szell's Haydn and enjoyed a recording of Pictures At An Exhibition but otherwise mostly found his music cold and distant. It was always perfectly played, though, like a bunch of computers at work.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

What needs to be remembered is that a few tyrannical types made great music but there are a lot of them who didn't.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

N/A as far as I'm concerned. My only relationship to any of this is the recordings. I listen and compare performances and sound quality. I don't care about a conductor's disposition. I just got done doing this with Dvorak symphonies and I chose Neumann's second cycle. I haven't heard Szell's Dvorak.

I also did some comparing with Haydn's London Symphonies and decided on Colin Davis. I don't know if he's a prick or a nice guy? But he sounds the best to my ears.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

superb musical results have achieved by both approaches- the tyrannical, domineering approach - Reiner, Szell, Toscanini. etc; and the more courteous, respectful approach - Monteux, Brumo Walter....what is more important is that the conductor knows exactly what he/she wants, how to get it, how to fix things. how to inspire the alertness and energy in the musicians....orchestra musicians will tolerate a tyrant if the music is top-notch....people like to play on a winning team.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

There is no excuse for the type of rudeness shown by the Toscanini's and the Reiners. One word for it - 'unprofessional'


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

DavidA said:


> There is no excuse for the type of rudeness shown by the Toscanini's and the Reiners. One word for it - 'unprofessional'


It was a different time. By today's standards, yes, they were tyrannical, but back in those days it was common - and not just in music. That's why a lot of older people call millennials "snowflakes". Read about Army drill sergeants of the 1940's compared to them today. There are still a lot of musicians who remember William Revelli - he was the numero uno tyrant of the band world; and they loved him for it. Any college band director today would be fired in minutes for the things Revelli did. But back in his era, it was no big deal. Whenever you start to judge people who lived and worked a long time ago just say to yourself "The past is like a foreign land; they do things differently there."


----------



## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

Triplets, re Szell’s lack of affinity for Mahler, I remember reading Britten publicly questioning why Boulez bothered conducting so much music which he didn’t care for. On the question how he knew this to be the case, Britten answered:”That is obvious listening to it, isn’t it?” And Iarold, on Szell being one of the instigators of musical perfection, in his own time he was accused of being a machine, “and a very good one”,as Klemperer retorted.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

The fact that other conductors of the period managed to get equally good results without resorting to tyrannical behaviour implies that the behaviour was less important to the result than their knowledge and experience.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> It was a different time. By today's standards, yes, they were tyrannical, but back in those days it was common - and not just in music. That's why a lot of older people call millennials "snowflakes"...


Coincidentally, I just ran into this article: "How overparenting in America has created a generation of snowflakes".

Excerpt: "… he would always ask audiences the age when their parents allowed them to go outside and play without supervision. The over-40 set would invariably answer between 5 years old and 8 eight years old. The under-25 group would say 12 to 16. Yes, 16 years old."

"In the 1990s, as the crime rate was plummeting, as American life was getting safer and safer, Americans freaked out and thought that if they take their eyes off their children the children will be abducted…"

An interesting story, and one that certainly rings true based on my own experience.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...created-a-generation-of-snowflakes-2018-11-28


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Coincidentally, I just ran into this article: "How overparenting in America has created a generation of snowflakes".
> 
> Excerpt: "… he would always ask audiences the age when their parents allowed them to go outside and play without supervision. The over-40 set would invariably answer between 5 years old and 8 eight years old. The under-25 group would say 12 to 16. Yes, 16 years old."


I would think that the neighborhood has something to do with it. Big city urban neighborhoods are far more dangerous than they used to be.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Conductors of both types can be found, known for their great performances and recordings, not to mention their famous temperaments-the tyrants and the coaxers. Some get the best out of the musicians by using unpredictability, anger and fear; and some are known for coaxing out great performances. But it's much more interesting for me to read about the tyrants and how the orchestras survived them. I wouldn't want it have played under Toscanini or Szell. Fritz Reiner maybe, because I like his recordings so much that can seem so opposite to his intimidating personality. His recording of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony with the CSO is tops for me because it never spoils the mood of nature or Beethoven 's sense of well-being and peace, a beautiful performance that I've played over and over and over. On the other hand, I wouldn't have minded playing for Bruno Walther, Barbirolli, Beecham, Tintner, Tennstedt, Gilbert, Mehta, Dudamel, and a few others, who are more mild-mannered and the coaxers. They are more the " unifiers " who may see themselves as equal with the orchestra rather than trying to dominate it in order to get a great performance, knowing that all conductors are a unique blend of characteristics and not always completely on the side of the devils or angels. Perhaps the biggest difference between them is that with kindness there's a greater sense of the music being brought to life from love rather than through intimidation and fear.






Toscanini flying into a rage:


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I would think that the neighborhood has something to do with it. Big city urban neighborhoods are far more dangerous than they used to be.


That would surprise me. Have you seen any statistics that support this? Here are the nationwide trends. More at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/ .


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> That would surprise me. Have you seen any statistics that support this?


http://www.nber.org/papers/w5430

Not the best article, but I guess I'm thinking about how things are in the last few decades vs. pre: 1980-90 so we're apparently talking about different time periods.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Good conductor:

View attachment 110245


Bad conductors:

View attachment 110246


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaveM said:


> http://www.nber.org/papers/w5430
> 
> Not the best article, but I guess I'm thinking about how things are in the last few decades vs. pre: 1980-90 so we're apparently talking about different time periods.


The paper you reference says, "Crime rates are much higher in big cities than in either small cities or rural areas, and this situation has been relatively pervasive for several centuries."

I'm sure that's been true and remains true. But after a brief scan I see no time series data in this paper, nothing to indicate whether "Big city urban neighborhoods are far more dangerous than they used to be." Am I missing something?

For perspective: Per Wiki, the rate of violent crime in the US was 386.3 per 100,000 population in 2016. This was the lowest rate since 1970, 46 years earlier.

From the Pew Research article: "Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down. In 17 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least six-in-ten Americans said there was more crime in the U.S. compared with the year before, despite the generally downward trend in national violent and property crime rates during much of that period."​


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

I've played for both types of conductors....the methods in pursuit of perfection varied considerably...but the essential components were concept, technique. and ability to inspire. I played for Walter Hendl, Reiner's student and clone- domineering, tyrannical, intimidating, sarcastic....but he was a great. conductor- knew exactly what he wanted to hear, how to get it, and how to fix things...rehearsals were stressful beyond belief, the concerts, exhilarating....every concert had potential to be fantastic.other conductors were much more cordial, courteous...but got good results nonetheless...every conductor must have a strong ego....you have to convince 80+ egotists to do it your way, when they all think that they know a better way.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

That's funny; I played with another Reiner protégé, the late Irwin Hoffman who actually had a chance to take over the reins in Chicago - but like Hendl, he was also domineering, tyrannical, intimidating, sarcastic...and profoundly musical. What an ear! I couldn't stand his musical taste: too much Mozart, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Mozart...rather a boring repertoire, although I still remember a fantastic Prokofieff 5th and the terror he inflicted on the orchestra in rehearsals for it.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Perhaps the most worthwhile thing I've gained thus far from reading this intriguing thread is the urge to revisit that Szell recording of the Dvořák Seventh Symphony, a copy of which I have in my collection on Sony Classical ‎MH2K 63151, titled _Three Great Symphonies _and featuring also the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

"If I look back at the last two and a half decades of concertising, I can honestly say that the politics, the backstabbing, the relentless bastardry of the classical music scene have had an effect."

In an article written in 2013 titled "Backstabbing & Bastardry" Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi went into the more subtle tactics he's experienced in today's classical music industry.

https://issuu.com/finemusic/docs/fine_music_magazine_january_2013/4

However we judge it, the overt authoritarianism of the past is gone, but bullying isn't.

Ironically I considered opening a discussion on this at TC when the article was fresh. There was near blanket denial that this sort of thing goes on in music. Consequently I didn't open the discussion, and it was the right decision. As the saying goes, it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I see the age of the true Tyrant conductor over. At one time when orchestras were 99% male, except for maybe the harpists and the pianists, a tyrant could be the general conducting his ground troops with absolute dominance. And the ground troops were supposed to be man enough to take it. They could be dominated and they weren't supposed to complain about a tyrant 's verbal abuse and intimidation, the anger, the tantrums, the fear of reprisals in order to get a good performance out of the orchestra. They were supposed to rise above.

But the mixture of the orchestras has changed with the greater balance of men and women. It's a different psychology: Men and women are supposed to play together with complete focus and not be attracted to each other at the same time, which of course is sometimes impossible. It's a new and a dramatic change from a predominately male orchestra. It's a different psychology.

So you have conductors getting drawn to the females in their orchestras, but they're not supposed to be, where women may not have been included before, many being a great combination of talent, beauty and magnetism. It's much more complicated and yet the current make-up of most orchestras is bound to remain because women have demonstrated their worth as great section players and soloists. They 're quite often beating the men in blind auditions.

So they've earned a place and they've also gained great power and influence in the orchestra. And because of that, I doubt they would ever put up with an abusive conductor. It's now the conductors who are on the run, but it's still a question of whether the orchestras sound better now than before. My own view is that the orchestras of today are excellent but do not sound as _distinctive_ as they did in the past, perhaps because there are too many changeovers in the rosters of the orchestras, whether it's a man or a woman. The orchestras do not sound as shaped and formed. And maybe it's just that the orchestras do not have the same kind of focus and chemistry as they did before and it'll take longer for the gender balance to show its advantages. In any event, I consider the mixture of genders in an orchestra as relatively recent in the history of the music, starting only about 50 or 60 years ago.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> superb musical results have achieved by both approaches- the tyrannical, domineering approach - Reiner, Szell, Toscanini. etc; and the more courteous, respectful approach - Monteux, Brumo Walter....what is more important is that the conductor knows exactly what he/she wants, how to get it, how to fix things. how to inspire the alertness and energy in the musicians....orchestra musicians will tolerate a tyrant if the music is top-notch....people like to play on a winning team.


Exactly. It isn't right to assume all or even most great conductors in the olden days were tyrants. I've read that Artur Nikisch was a legendary charmer who came from the ranks of the players and always maintained a rapport as if he was still one of them. Apparently his degree of preparation was sometimes suspect but he got orchestras to play their hearts out for him.

Then there was the formidable figure of Wilhelm Furtwanger, who somehow conveyed profound musical ideas without saying much and with vague gestures from the podium that would seem insufficient even to keep the orchestra playing together. One interviewee in a documentary I saw said he was attending a rehearsal of the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by an assistant. Furtwangler simply walked into the hall and the orchestra's level of playing suddenly rose.

Then there was the charismatic Leopold Stokowski, who somehow managed to achieve his trademark sound (live as well as on record, as I can attest) from any number of orchestras, including for many years his freelance "Leopold Stokowski Symphony Orchestra" assembled from a pool of top New York players for the purpose of making recordings from the late 40s until the early 60s. I've read these players sometimes didn't even know what they would be recording that day until they got to the studio.

More recently, Leonard Bernstein was the classic dashing, charismatic charmer, both on the podium and off it.

It's hard to generalize from these examples or that of Toscanini and his Hungarian disciples Szell, Reiner and Ormandy. But there is no question that conductors today wouldn't get far as vicious tyrants.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> It was a different time. By today's standards, yes, they were tyrannical, but back in those days it was common - and not just in music.


This is a good point - in those past years, early 20th century - tyrannical, dictatorial music directors were common - many of these conductors came up thru the ranks, leading regional or district opera houses - dealing with not-so-great-singers and musicians who were not always looking to excel...conductors had to be be real hardasses to get results...
Also - orchestra musicians can be really tough, and cynical - they do not suffer fools - NYPO, Chicago, Boston, ViennaPO, some of the London orchestras were notorious for their rough treatment of conductors....you're going to get in front of VPO and conduct Mozart?? you'd better know exactly what you're doing....
NYPO lived thru Toscanini and Rodzinski in rapid succession; the CSO, Rodzinski and Reiner, BSO dealt with Koussevitsky [a real martinet] for years....orchestra musicians were pretty thick-skinned...
I played for Walter Hendl [Reiner's] clone - a domineering, sarcastic bully.....I value the experience - any conductor that tried to act "tough" after Hendl, was a joke, comical even...<<you think you're tough?? I've seen tough, you aren't even close, you're a clown>>


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> This is a good point - in those past years, early 20th century - tyrannical, dictatorial music directors were common - many of these conductors came up thru the ranks, leading regional or district opera houses - dealing with not-so-great-singers and musicians who were not always looking to excel...conductors had to be be real hardasses to get results...
> Also - orchestra musicians can be really tough, and cynical - they do not suffer fools - NYPO, Chicago, Boston, ViennaPO, some of the London orchestras were notorious for their rough treatment of conductors....you're going to get in front of VPO and conduct Mozart?? you'd better know exactly what you're doing....
> NYPO lived thru Toscanini and Rodzinski in rapid succession; the CSO, Rodzinski and Reiner, BSO dealt with Koussevitsky [a real martinet] for years....orchestra musicians were pretty thick-skinned...
> I played for Walter Hendl [Reiner's] clone - a domineering, sarcastic bully.....I value the experience - any conductor that tried to act "tough" after Hendl, was a joke, comical even...<<you think you're tough?? I've seen tough, you aren't even close, you're a clown>>


Sometimes you can get clues about the source of the conductor's attitude from his background. Koussevitsky came from a poor family in Russia but married into a fabulously wealthy one that kept its fortune after the Russian revolution. He was very conscious of his place socially and professionally, i.e., well beneath wealthy patrons and donors, but well above the musicians in his orchestra. Seeing Szell interviewed in a documentary, he clearly had the same attitude. Contrast that with the dapper, witty and generally genial Sir Thomas Beecham, who was born into wealth rather than marrying into it. Of course, an even greater contrast would be with Koussevitsky's student and protege Leonard Bernstein, a political leftist who had to fight to avoid losing his passport in the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era.

In Bernstein's published correspondence there is a revealing letter to him from Koussevitsky in which the mentor takes his young charge to task for not knowing his place beneath wealthy patrons and orchestra board members. Bernstein had dared to openly express his approval of the appointment of Thor Johnson as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony in 1947. Bernstein's response shows his astonishment at receiving such an angry letter. The times, they were a changin'.


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

It's interesting that no one has mentioned Adrian Boult so far. Although capable of withering sarcasm, he was never a monster or a shouter yet he could coax wonderful performances out of sometimes rather ramshackle orchestras. 

And didn't Rachmaninoff say that the qualities required by a conductor were the same as those of a chauffeur? Something about concentration and attention to detail. I'll try to find the quote.


----------



## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

larold said:


> _Are today's performances, made in a kinder and gentler world, more "vanilla" consensus versions lacking the same force? What say ye? _
> 
> I don't think much has changed in conductors' outlook though things have changed a lot in society. Both James Levine and Charles Dutoit were outed for sexual issues. Daniel Gatti was dissed for outrageous behavior before audiences and the orchestra, then essentially admitted inappropriate sexual actions and voluntarily stepped down at another orchestra.
> 
> ...


Little do I know about different conductors, though I found Harnoncourt's recordings personally sympathetic so I've been sticking with him lately when exploring. And I notice that Harnoncourt agreed with you. As a cellist in the VPO he played under Szell "about 100 times" and said "He should be happy that I didn't kill him... there was not one minute of music making...For him everything was equal. Rhythms were never flexible; pitches equal always. He had no idea that the apparent contradictions were valuable for music."


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Stokowski... not a tyrant but he seems to embody the music... intelligent, clear and incisive... listen how the orchestra responds to his every move (or tries to)... incredible ears:


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The seating arrangement in Stokowski's video is amazing: basses in the back, cellos in front of them. He really insists on correct rhythms, getting dynamics in balance, but not a word (at least here) about intonation which needed improving, especially in the strings. Charlatan or not, he sure knew how to get what he wanted. Just too bad so many of recordings are flawed because of his incessant tampering with the composer's orchestration.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> Just too bad so many of recordings are flawed because of his incessant tampering with the composer's orchestration.


I'm not responding to argue or disagree, but to me somehow it just wouldn't be Stokowski without that tampering.


----------



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> The seating arrangement in Stokowski's video is amazing: basses in the back, cellos in front of them. He really insists on correct rhythms, getting dynamics in balance, but not a word (at least here) about intonation which needed improving, especially in the strings. *Charlatan or not,* he sure knew how to get what he wanted. Just too bad so many of recordings are flawed because of his incessant tampering with the composer's orchestration.


I have a very hard time coming up with a less appropriate description for Stokowski than charlatan!


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Becca said:


> I have a very hard time coming up with a less appropriate description for Stokowski than charlatan!


There were a lot of people who labeled that way, yet the work he did in Philadelphia is stunning. Ormandy inherited a first-class orchestra and it was Stokie who made it that way. I cannot abide the way he messed up some scores: Scheherazade, Tchaik 6th, Dvorak New World. The Phase 4 Beethoven 9th is exciting and well done, but then he adds that god-awful trumpet lick at the end. He knew what he was doing, and he certainly pleased the heck out of audiences for a long time. His concerts were thrilling and no charlatan could have gotten the results he did: there was some serious skill and musicality. I just finished a Holiday Concert series and one work I programmed was the Traditional Slavonic Christmas Music for strings and brass as arranged by Stokowski. It's brilliant really. Fabulously well scored and profoundly moving. Behind the glitz and glamour of the Stokowski legend there really was a great musical mind.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I consider Stokowski a charlatan accent-wise, but otherwise an interesting and often very impressive conductor.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> There were a lot of people who labeled that way, yet the work he did in Philadelphia is stunning. Ormandy inherited a first-class orchestra and it was Stokie who made it that way. I cannot abide the way he messed up some scores: Scheherazade, Tchaik 6th, Dvorak New World. The Phase 4 Beethoven 9th is exciting and well done, but then he adds that god-awful trumpet lick at the end. He knew what he was doing, and he certainly pleased the heck out of audiences for a long time. His concerts were thrilling and no charlatan could have gotten the results he did: there was some serious skill and musicality. I just finished a Holiday Concert series and one work I programmed was the Traditional Slavonic Christmas Music for strings and brass as arranged by Stokowski. It's brilliant really. Fabulously well scored and profoundly moving. Behind the glitz and glamour of the Stokowski legend there really was a great musical mind.


Yes. In other words, a unique combination of pizzazz, imagination and skill. Sure, if you go back and examine his recordings in the cold, clear light of what is now some considerable historical perspective, some of his artistic choices seem puzzling. But he was able to inspire orchestras to believe in his ideas, and in that way inspire audiences, rather than being an iron-fisted tyrant ruling by fear like Reiner. At any rate, that was the original point I was trying to make.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I consider Stokowski a charlatan accent-wise, but otherwise an interesting and often very impressive conductor. _

Stokowski is my favorite conductor, able in my opinion to do something with music others couldn't. He was a man of his time, however, having multiple lovers and a longstanding affair with actress Greta Garbo. This is embodied to some extent in a story my friend told me (my friend was a correspondent in a big city covering the orchestra.)

One day after practice the call went out to the concertmaster: "Send the first flautist to my room."

The concertmaster hurried forward, then returned to ask the maestro: "Should she bring her instrument?"

Stoki replied, "I don't know why."


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

larold said:


> _I consider Stokowski a charlatan accent-wise, but otherwise an interesting and often very impressive conductor. _
> 
> Stokowski is my favorite conductor, able in my opinion to do something with music others couldn't. He was a man of his time, however, having multiple lovers and a longstanding affair with actress Greta Garbo. This is embodied to some extent in a story my friend told me (my friend was a correspondent in a big city covering the orchestra.)
> 
> ...


Yes, he liked glamorous ladies, as do the leading male celebrity performers of today. I don't think that has changed much. Alas, classical music conductors are seldom the leading celebrity performers these days, as Stokowski was in his day.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

fluteman said:


> Alas, classical music conductors are *seldom* the leading celebrity performers these days, as Stokowski was in his day.


How about *Never*? Who was the last conductor on the cover of Time? Solti maybe and that was 45 years ago. Even Dudamel, for all the hype and celebrity is an unknown to most in LA. There was a story on a national news channel about the tribulations of the Met and James Levine, but only because of the salacious nature of it all. Back in the 40s and 50s when radio and TV networks still had real orchestras even the common folk, like my farmer grandparents, knew the names Toscanini, Stokowski, Koussevitsky. They were even familiar with Bernard Herrmann, Morton Gould, and Andre Kostelanetz. But god forbid some vulgar rock musician dies - then it's breaking news.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> How about *Never*? Who was the last conductor on the cover of Time? Solti maybe and that was 45 years ago. Even Dudamel, for all the hype and celebrity is an unknown to most in LA. There was a story on a national news channel about the tribulations of the Met and James Levine, but only because of the salacious nature of it all. Back in the 40s and 50s when radio and TV networks still had real orchestras even the common folk, like my farmer grandparents, knew the names Toscanini, Stokowski, Koussevitsky. They were even familiar with Bernard Herrmann, Morton Gould, and Andre Kostelanetz. But god forbid some vulgar rock musician dies - then it's breaking news.


People knew the names of opera singers back then too. Bob Merrill, Jan Peerce, Roberta Peters, Helen Traubel, Eileen Farrell, Beverly Sills - they were always turning up on TV, singing arias on Ed Sullivan, chatting with Dinah Shore, duetting with Carol Burnett, guesting on "What's My Line?


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> People knew the names of opera singers back then too. Bob Merrill, Jan Peerce, Roberta Peters, Helen Traubel, Eileen Farrell, Beverly Sills - they were always turning up on TV, singing arias on Ed Sullivan, chatting with Dinah Shore, duetting with Carol Burnett, guesting on "What's My Line?


Even John Cage guested on "What's My Line." He performed his "Water Walk," flummoxing the audience who didn't know whether to recoil or laugh. It's on YouTube somewhere...


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Even John Cage guested on "What's My Line." He performed his "Water Walk," flummoxing the audience who didn't know whether to recoil or laugh. It's on YouTube somewhere...


Wasn't that on Ed Sullivan? It's a delightful cultural artifact, in any case. He beamed with cherubic innocence as he walked around manipulating, moving and banging on things.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Wasn't that on Ed Sullivan? It's a delightful cultural artifact, in any case. He beamed with cherubic innocence as he walked around manipulating, moving and banging on things.


Had to check. It was "I've Got a Secret."


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> People knew the names of opera singers back then too. Bob Merrill, Jan Peerce, Roberta Peters, Helen Traubel, Eileen Farrell, Beverly Sills - they were always turning up on TV, singing arias on Ed Sullivan, chatting with Dinah Shore, duetting with Carol Burnett, guesting on "What's My Line?


I could be wrong, as I no longer watch the tv talk shows, but David Letterman was the last American host I remember to regularly feature classical musicians and other serious artists. (We can't count classical music enthusiast Dick Cavett, as although he has continued with the occasional tv interview over the years, he ended his regular show a very long time ago). I remember Itzhak Perlman as Letterman's guest after his show moved to the Ed Sullivan theater in New York, and Perlman reminiscing about appearing in that same theater as a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show itself as a 13-year old. Renee Fleming was another Letterman guest.
In addition to Cavett, Johnny Carson had classical musicians on his show with some frequency, and on one memorable occasion, PDQ Bach (Peter Schikele). Ah, those were the days.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mbhaub said:


> It was a different time. By today's standards, yes, they were tyrannical, but back in those days it was common - and not just in music. That's why a lot of older people call millennials "snowflakes". *Read about Army drill sergeants of the 1940's compared to them today.* There are still a lot of musicians who remember William Revelli - he was the numero uno tyrant of the band world; and they loved him for it. Any college band director today would be fired in minutes for the things Revelli did. But back in his era, it was no big deal. Whenever you start to judge people who lived and worked a long time ago just say to yourself "The past is like a foreign land; they do things differently there."


There might be a case for army drill sergeants but we are here talking about musicians


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Had to check. It was "I've Got a Secret."


 It looks like the host was actually Gary Moore, in case no one has mentioned it.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> It looks like the host was actually Gary Moore, in case no one has mentioned it.


Believe that's correct. He was all over TV in those days. Who remembers him now? Well, I do...


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Believe that's correct. He was all over TV in those days. Who remembers him now? Well, I do...


Thanks for digging that up, Ken! It's interesting that Gary Moore goes to a fair amount of trouble to prepare the audience, not only by letting John Cage explain what he is about to do and why, but by reading from an article by a Herald Tribune music critic (probably Virgil Thomson), assuring everyone it's OK to laugh, etc. Once Mr. Moore has done all that (with surprising intelligence and skill), the affable and good-humored Mr. Cage gives his performance and gets a positive reaction, eliciting both laughter and applause. It shows that an audience comes to a theater with certain expectations, and if you are going to confound those expectations, it's a good idea to prepare the audience first so they can readjust their expectations.

Leopold Stokowski was an expert at understanding the theatrical expectations of his audience, both in the concert hall, in two great movies, and even in interviews. It seems that nearly everything he did in public he did with well-judged theatrical flair.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

In Cage’s “Water Walk” his rubber duckie didn’t quack. Just broke wind. Twice! Must... do... over. Nor did his blender crunch the ice cubes. (Always check your rubber duck and Hamilton blender before a performance)... My favorite part was watering the flower vase in the bathtub. I find myself in a pleasant mood after watching this insanity... He also shoved radios on the floor that had been silent anyway, perhaps a precursor to 4:33 and a subtle reference to absolute infinity. Must try this performance at home with a real quacking duck and working blender.  PS. Some may remember that the congenial Gary Moore was the one who launched Carol Burnett on his popular variety show.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> In Cage's "Water Walk" his rubber duckie didn't quack. Twice! Must... do... over. Nor did his blender crunch the ice cubes... My favorite part was watering the flower vase in the bathtub. I find myself in a pleasant mood after watching this insanity... He also shoved radios on the floor that hadn't been playing anyway, perhaps a precursor to 4:33 and a subtle reference to absolute infinity. Must try this performance at home with a real quacking duck and working blender. The only thing missing was a Christmas tree.  PS. The congenial Gary Moore was the one who launched Carol Burnett on his variety show!


You're right, it didn't all go exactly as planned for Mr. Cage. I loved hearing about the unresolved union dispute over who had the right to plug in the radios. But he was unruffled and went on with the show. As for Gary Moore, it's interesting how the original TV game shows, like What's My Line and I've Got A Secret, had intelligent and clever hosts and participants, and were much like cocktail party games well-educated people might play, not the dumbed-down later stuff. It really wasn't that much of a stretch to have John Cage as a guest. As I said above, Johnny Carson had Peter Schikele on his show conducting the Tonight Show Orchestra in some PDQ Bach music. Even those crack pro musicians had their hands full with PDQ's clever silliness, but they managed. All that is way too highbrow for TV today.


----------

