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Title: The Compleat Conductor by Gunther Schuller ISBN: 0-19-512661-0 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: October, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful resource...I'm listening with new ears
Comment: This book was recommended to me during a conducting workshop. The teacher, an extremely knowledgeable musician and gifted and hardworking conductor, hated this book upon FIRST reading, and as he explored the concepts and analyses further found more enlightenment and wisdom. You can tell the folks who didn't like this book are writing off the cuff.
In The Compleat Conductor, Gunther Schuller gives us his philosophy and a short history of conducting, and then goes into some real detail analyzing eight great classical works and how even the greatest maestros can fail the composer's wishes and ideals. Schuller is VERY straightforward and covers all of his bases well, and defends his points and decisions and pickiness. A quote: "The secret of great artistry and true integrity of interpretation lies in the ability to bring to life the score for the listener (and the orchestra) through the fullest knowledge of the score, so that the conductor's personality expresses itself WITHIN the parameters of the score." Schuller maintains that composers like Beethoven and Brahms were very explicit in their desires, and that their music doesn't need all of the extra bells and whistles conductors use to manipulate an audience, and in fact a good number of conductors in the process ignore the finer points of the music.
Quote again: "...all those deviations from the score do not necessarily make the performance 'more natural,''more human.' They may create that illusion--or delusion; they may fool the unknowing, unwary listener into thinking that it was 'exciting,''moving,''authentic,' when in reality the excitement was superficial and the work was grossly misrepresented."
There are points in the book where Schuller recommends changing this and that in various scores, which would seem to directly contradict everything he built up in the first two sections of the book. But in these sections he more than backs up his reasons--there may be a conflict between the manuscript and printed scores, maybe there is truly a problem in balance due to the power of different instruments, or else there may be problems in the publishing. His point being that you have to make informed, intelligent decisions when you bring music to life with an ensemble. Every single nitpick Schuller has with the world's greatest conductors is backed up by examples in the score and historical musical analysis. I have to admit it is a little bit fun to read some of the barbs he throws at the "great maestroes", and to know that they are fallible and not necessarily automatically superior interpreters of every work. A conductor can get a sound thrashing for certain points of his interpretation of a piece, but then on the next page be commended as being the ultimate purveyor of good taste in another passage over all others. So each conductor is only judged on their actions within the music and get equal consideration (with the exception of Bernstein who gets a poke or two for his ego and podium gyrations).
As a violinist in a couple of local symphonies and someone who has studied to a small degree the art of conducting, I have to agree with Schuller that most musicians have no idea what actually goes on within a score and that that is a real disservice to the music. Most musicians, I have discovered, also have no idea what makes the difference between a great conductor and teacher and someone who can go through the motions and look really good--without actually transferring much meaning into the music for the musicians to work with. This is why The Compleat Conductor is important for musicians to read. And if you are simply a classical music lover this could get a little bit pedantic at times, but if you also like to follow scores can be an eye-opener when you go back to listen again with your favorite recording.
By the way, Schuller does make exceptions for the different sound qualities of recordings of different time periods and does note those places where he couldn't be sure of problems because of those difficulties. There are also a couple of unfortunate editing errors, but they are small considerations within the large scope of this work.
Rating: 1
Summary: Beethoven and Toscanini make way, Schuller knows best!
Comment: This is a very bizarre book indeed. Schuller's ideals are laudable in themselves: don't tamper with scores and don't let your ego get in the way of what the composer is saying. But his attempts to prove his point are flawed in almost every way, mainly because he constantly breaks the rules that he set out himself to start with. He obsessively analyses recordings of a number of famous great works with the score in hand, and points out the innumerable sins, blunders and stupidities that in his view virtually every conductor allows himself in virtually every bar. For some reason the author presumes he is just about the only one who knows how it should be done, or cares about doing it well, or even more amazingly: knows what the composer actually meant. E.g.: Changing anything in a score is a mortal sin, because the composer knows best - only Schuller knows better, pointing out where the composer 'forgot' something or is 'obviously' wrong, and changing instrumentation, tempo or dynamics accordingly. For some unspecified reason (a personal hotline to the hereafter maybe?) the author is the only conductor allowed to make such decisions; be sure he will hurl accusations of incompetence or arrogance at others who do the same thing! These inconsistencies are an inevitable result from the assumption that scores are fairly unambiguous and composers well nigh infallible. Of course, they aren't and they aren't.
Schuller claims objectivity, but his methods wouldn't hold their own against even the mildest scientific criteria. How can one realistically compare recordings from the '30s to state of the art CD-sound from the '90s? Can one really, objectively and consistently, judge the difference between pp and ppp? And if Schuller can't hear a particular detail, is that proof of an inadequate performance - or does it say something about differences in recording techniques, about the (unspecified) playback equipment Schuller used, or even about his hearing? Worse, Schuller's reasoning is rarely other than subjective: 'Any intelligent reading of the score will make it obvious...', and arguments like that. Also he will point out how 'natural', 'thrilling' or 'perfect'something will sound if done the right (i.e., Schuller's) way, forgetting that these are all matters of taste. Where he really gives himself away is in his vitriolic attack on the authenticists, which is so poorly argued and random that I find it hard to understand without wondering about personal motives (Schuller pulls all the stops here, and enjoys adding a footnote in which he points out that in a supposedly 'expert' booklet note on an authentic Beethoven recording the term 'mezza voce' is misspelled as 'mesa voce'. This turns out unexpectedly funny seeing that Schuller himself also misspells the term, as 'messa voce'!).
Maybe for some this book invites a new look at some scores, but it also turns music-making into a scholastic exercise at the risk of draining all feeling out of it. The useful points that are made could have been made in under 50 pages; the rest is just obsessive repetition. It might have warranted 2 stars, maybe, but I felt the overenthusiastic average rating needed some reduction towards a more realistic level.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Must Read for Every Musician
Comment: Gunther Schuller is, in my view, the most knowledgeable living
musician. What this book provides is a factual awareness of hoaxes perpetrated by so-called 'name' conductors over the years.
Every symphony orchestra player will benefit from the information provided in this masterpiece.
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Title: Anatomy of the Orchestra by Norman Del Mar ISBN: 0520050622 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 1984 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Handbook of Conducting by Hermann Scherchen, Michel D. Calvocoressi, Norman Del Mar ISBN: 0198161824 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: March, 1990 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power by Norman Lebrecht ISBN: 0806520884 Publisher: Carol Pub Group Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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