What will you do, if you have a conductor in front, who knows everything about a certain big piece and leads the piece following every flydropping in the score like it were the "Holy Evangelium", but has not 1/1000th percent of charisma & taste ? Who is a fleshless, temperamentless superbly studied very friendly & polite fellow, but cannot recognize if a chord in a progression is false or not. If he doesn´t even hear the wrong note ? But he is highly traded internationally ? Here the ear counts, but the ear combined with the instant recognition facility to distinguish "wrong in style" or "still possible for that piece". It would be better definitely, if the conductor would know the score by heart, but this might be too much on expectation, even these particular conductors have conducted this piece on a multitude of occasions. Knowing by heart does not definitely mean, that he could write it down by heart, but (as did Karajan) it would mean, that all the "acoustical sensations" would be stored in ones memory, so any deviation from that would disturb & bring the conductor to a halt, make him look into the score, find (extract) the wrong note & get it played correctly by the particular musician. But if that does not happen with the conductor, how would you estimate this gentleman ? Ohh, he has a superb baton technique.
This is not a real but a true story & could happen everywhere & has happen at many places. All you need is a very good management & a rigorous lobby. You will get to the top. _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
