Cultured Views

Why does an orchestra need a conductor?

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This is a question I have been asked on several occasions and my answer is generally this - does a football team need a coach…?

Effectively the conductor is to the orchestra what the coach is to the football team - they perform vastly different duties but essentially do the same job; they get the team ready for the big game. The both take the kudos if the team does well…and they cop the fallout when the team does badly.

Now to focus on the actual question itself - yes. In general. Because there are variations of orchestras and countless works of music, some of which require the services of a conductor i.e. a Bruckner symphony, and some where the ensemble play under the directorship of the principal player i.e a Mozart divertimento. But in essence there is always a conductor in some form.

Take one of those Bruckner Symphonies for example; they are works of such a huge scale - including massed choirs - that how on earth could those in the brass ever hope to follow the principal violin - how could the principal violin possibly control the singers, the wind, the percussion with just the scroll of the violin…?

Then again I played in a performance of Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante for Violin and Viola where the ‘orchestra’ was a much smaller ensemble; the soloists played and we followed the principal violin - in that type of work the principal player ‘conducted’. Still, it’s not a piece of cake though.

The conductor of an orchestra has an often unenviable job. No matter how accomplished his musicians he has to know more than them about the music they are to play; no matter how often members of the 1st violins have played in Mozart’s Symphony No 41, each time they will have to play according to how a particular conductor wishes them to play. And how the conductor wishes to style the piece will dictate how they will play their parts even though they will often know the parts from memory.

The conductor though does know the parts from memory - he/she has to know what every single musician must be doing at every single moment throughout a performance. He/she needs to encourage the violins to play up whilst at the same time ensuring the viola’s do not…it is a well known joke that looking too much in the viola’s direction only encourages them to play too loud

With the right hand the conductor controls tempi while the left hand styles the music; the dynamics, the nuances. With the eyes the conductor communicates everything else in between - the conductor will also use his/her eyes to let a particular section/player know immediately if they have done something wrong…(believe me, I have been on the receiving end of a fiery glare several times).

I once read where Herbert von Karajan once compared the concentration of a conductor to that of a surgeon carrying out delicate and intricate surgery; it is claimed he had his tonsils taken out under local anaesthetic so that he could see for himself the eyes and face of the doctor during the procedure.

A little drastic maybe, but the conductor certainly performs his own delicate and intricate surgery with his musicians. One slip, one missed cue and the entire structure of a work could fall…

I have deep admiration and respect for the orchestral conductor; they arrive at rehearsal before the orchestra and they are still there after the players have left. They prepare the scores - for each and every player - they work into the night on the music whilst we muso’s are winding down and snuggling into bed.

They tell us when to start playing and they tell us when to stop; some are temperamental, some are laid back and relaxed. Most are a combination of both.

But one thing is certain…whereas some orchestra’s  do not need a conductor standing in front of them - a conductor cannot conduct without one.

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