I’m just back from Europe and wanted to collect a few thoughts here. This was a mixed work/pleasure trip, the main event being a London recording of my Concerto for Choir, an a cappella piece in seven movements that I composed during the final days of the pre-vaccine era. I will have much more to say about this later.
My itinerary included stops in the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. I heard a couple of Proms concerts and two performances at the Concertgebouw, including a phenomenal new piece called The Redcrosse Knight by the young Dutch composer Xavier van de Poll. I also saw a play in Frankfurt. And most happily, I visited old friends and met new ones.
Before crossing the Atlantic, I stopped in New York for a different recording project, where I got to see Into the Woods during its limited run on Broadway after transferring from City Center (superb, especially the orchestra) and an American Symphony Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall (about which, more below in the Gabfest episode.)
Then it was a week-long stint guest teaching at the Pierre Monteux School. This invitation came in the wake of the passing of my dearly beloved teacher, Michael Jinbo, so it was both thrilling and surreal at the same time. I taught Brahms’ 3rd symphony, Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps, Rachmaninoff’s 3rd symphony, and two of the movements of Dvorak’s 7th. Can’t ask for much better than that.
Much of these travels were memorialized on… what else? The Classical Gabfest!
In the middle segment, Tiffany and I discuss Pierre Monteux’s Rules for Young Conductors. I’ve gone ahead and posted them here, since they’re a bit challenging to find online.
Never bend, even for a pianissimo. The effect is too obvious behind.
Be always dignified from the time you come on stage.
Always conduct with a baton, so the players far from you can see your beat.
Know your score perfectly.
Never conduct for the audience.
Always mark the first beat of each measure very neatly, so the players who are counting and not playing know where you are.
Always in a two-beat measure, beat the second beat higher than the first. For a four-beat bar, beat the fourth higher.
TWELVE “DON’TS”
Don’t overconduct; don’t make unnecessary movements or gestures.
Don’t fail to make music; don’t allow music to stagnate. Don’t neglect any phrase or overlook its integral part in the complete work.
Don’t adhere pedantically to metronomic time — vary the tempo according to the subject or phrase and give each its own character.
Don’t permit the orchestra to play always a boresome mezzo-forte.
Don’t conduct without a baton; don’t bend over while conducting.
Don’t conduct solo instruments in solo passages; don’t worry or annoy sections or players by looking intently at them in “ticklish” passages.
Don’t forget to cue players or sections that have had long rests, even though the part is seemingly an unimportant inner voice.
Don’t come before the orchestra if you have not mastered the score; don’t practice or learn the score “on the orchestra.”
Don’t stop the orchestra if you have nothing to say; don’t speak too softly to the orchestra, or only to the first stands.
Don’t stop for obviously accidental wrong notes.
Don’t sacrifice ensemble in an effort for meticulous beating — don’t hold sections back in technical passages where the urge comes to go forward.
Don’t be disrespectful to your players (no swearing); don’t forget individuals’ rights as persons; don’t undervalue the members of the orchestra simply because they are “cogs” in the “wheels.”
