Conductors & Musical Interpretation
Although conductors are commonly
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Although conductors are commonly thought of as leading musicians and producing interpretations of music, it is notoriously difficult to say precisely how this is done. Among those musicians who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, came to think of themselves as professional conductors the problem of interpretation centered around their control of the tempi and dynamics of musical works. An examination of treatises written by three of the leading conductors of this era, Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner and Felix Weingartner, demonstrates the development of a conception of musical interpretation that dominated conducting in European music for nearly a century. Present practice raises many questions about the degree to which a composer can truly be said to impose an interpretation on an orchestra. At the end of the twentieth century musicians generally believe that "the composer's wishes as notated or verbally expressed are law" and they "will often honour them over almost all considerations of musical aesthetics." In this context interpretation involves a construal of a piece and claims about how it should be played. These ideas are expressed via such factors as "tempos, dynamics, balance, instrumentation, articulation of phrases and motifs, ornamentation, the salience and the interrelation of musical lines, feelings and emotions expressed, and aesthetic and representational qualities conveyed"--but these are all aspects of an interpretation that is based on
. . .
s of the conductor himself. What mattered in conducting was what he could bring to it and, uniquely, bring out of it. The conductor needed not just a good ear and a total command of technique but also had to be "of a spiritual stature himself to divine the significance of the notes on the page, and transmit his vision of that to the orchestra, and thus to the audience."
Wagner was, of course, primarily speaking of himself when he described the conductor's aims. Uninspired performances distressed him and only his own example seemed to offer him much inspiration. As he says in his treatise, it was "very instructive to me, that my later genuine delight in Mozart's instrumental works was not kindled until I found occasion to conduct them, and thus to follow my own feeling of the animation" they demanded. It was from this vantage point that Wagner became the first virtuoso conductor "who felt it his right completely to remold the repertory in his own image."
According to Wagner his principal revelations about the nature of conducting took place during an 1839 performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Habenek. Wagner felt himself at a loss to explain the powerful effect of the performance since "old Habenek had
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Berlioz Wagner, Carl Maria, Wagner Weingartner, Felix Weingartner, Habenek Wagner, Ninth Symphony, Traditional Kapellmeisters, Paris Berlioz, Wagner Bnlow, Ross Judkins, berlioz wagner, von bnlow, hector berlioz, wagner's approach, richard wagner, twentieth century, middle twentieth century, wagner's followers, felix weingartner, european music, composer's intentions, conducting middle twentieth, notion conductor's interpretation, wagner's approach conducting, understanding composer's intentions,
Approximate Word count = 4781
Approximate Pages = 19 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
