I remember Louis Stout told me about how George Szell came to guest conduct the Chicago Symphony, this would have been in the late 50s. Szell ranted and raved and tried to fire several people but the management told him quite firmly he would not be firing anybody. Only Reiner could do that. There's a very entertaining book by Rudolf Bing who used to manage the Metropolitan Opera. I think it's called 1001 nights at the Opera. He talked about Szell guest conducting the Met and when it was over somebody said, "you know Szell is his own worst enemy". Bing replied "not as long as I'm alive!!!". Louis Stout said when Beecham came to guest conduct, he never liked to rehearse so he just let everybody go home early but the management insisted he had to rehearse so he did, but he wasn't happy about it. Piano training for conductors makes me think of our conductor Lawrence Leighton Smith. I remember him playing a concerto accompaniment from the full score at the piano while running through a couple of spots with the soloist. That impressed me and I mentioned it to a pianist friend. He said "Oh sure, just get the scores for all the Haydn Symphonies. Start with number one and it's only strings so you only have 4 parts to read and only one transposition. By the time you get to # 104, you're reading the full orchestra with all the transpositions". I was able to do it to some extent, not really fast but at least half-fast.
- Steve Mumford _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
