and you should provide me with a good one to read! I’ve always thought it was weird a conductor was viewed as in ‘charge’ of people who are all using sheet music but I also know that a central coordinator that tells everyone to start and shit is probably important
how much influence does a conductor have? how do they interact with the other artists artistically and economically? i would love to peer into this a little bit
No essay to offer but a conductor is just a human metronome. They’re “in charge” the same way the person banging the drum is in charge of a rowboat.
That’s true for some, but I’ll push back on this a bit. Some conductors have a great deal of influence and impart a strong characteristic sound or style.*
Herbert von Karajan**, for example, was famous for his dark, smooth sound with lots of bass strings, and very very quiet wind instruments. On the other hand, Simon Rattle, the following principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, has a bright and tinny style. That’s with the same ensemble.
The difference is even greater when you get to Baroque music and its “Historically Informed Performance” styles and instruments. Basically, people used to play Bach like it was Chopin, but then some nerds found out that it was played entirely differently in its own time. Both performance styles are popular today; there is no right or wrong.^
It’s understandable that Marxists, as critics of Great Man Theory, would be skeptical of the extent of the influence of figureheads with, often, large egos, but I think the conductor-musician relationship is a lot more direct than the one between a head of state and their subjects. It’s the conductor’s job to say “no, play it more like this, please,” and the professional musician will heed without arguing (even if they think the conductor is an idiot), because they understand that everyone playing the same style is far more important than the choice of style.
*This reminds me a lot of the conversation surrounding auteur theory.
**Karajan did, like, a dozen “cycles” of Beethoven’s symphonies. He was a lot like Mao Zedong in that he is still regarded as one of the GOATs, despite sticking around for way too long and getting progressively worse over time.
^I happen to dig “fusion” styles.
I think this is very important to understand, particularly in the creative field, where art direction (not in the capitalistic sense of extracting surplus, but in the sense of allocating people and resources to achieve a certain vision) is sometimes key to get somewhere where a single person wouldn’t have been able to.
The nature of said hierarchy and relationship between the person directing and the team is worth critiquing, because more often than not it reinforces or relies on oppressive hierarchies, but I don’t think the role of someone leading a team of artists should be completely abolished.
I guess I was more just talking about what they’re actually doing during a performance.
i’m very favorable to that perspective, but things like a conductor pointing at performers in performances, and the idolisation of certain ones, makes me think they’re doing something in the moment that isn’t necessarily covered by the sheets